Dharmendra (1935-2025): Son of the Soil

He was the He-Man with the shy smile, the poet with a pugilist's body and everyone's favourite Dharam Paaji. Dharmendra, or Garam Dharam as Stardust called him memorably, began as an arthouse actor, a favourite of thinking directors such as Bimal Roy and Hrishikesh Mukherjee. He may have been known to generations of movie fans as an action hero with the famous dialogue, "Kutte, kaminey, main tera khoon pee jayoonga (You dog, I will drink your blood)", but equally few can forget him as the sensitive prison doctor in Roy's Bandini (1963) or the upstanding young man in Mukherjee's Satyakam (1969). 

It is in the quieter moments in these films that Sholay's boisterous Veeru and Dharam Veer's arrowsmith shone. He was the classically handsome man whose career preceded both the dark star Rajesh Khanna and the angry young man Amitabh Bachchan, but he was resilient enough to last as long as them, if not longer. 

If his eventual second wife Hema Malini was the Dream Girl, he was the Dream Boy, a perfect combination of good looks and great acting skill, which could stretch from the feminist poet of Anupama (1966) to the late blooming lover of Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahanii (2023). As he said so memorably in Sriram Raghavan's Johnny Gaddaar, one of the movies in his second act which used him with love, care and a whole lot of fandom, "it's not the age, it's the mileage". 

Dharmendra was one of the earliest outsiders in the film industry entering through the Filmfare contest, which Rajesh Khanna was destined to win five years later. He eventually created a dynasty, with his grandson even closing the circle by marrying Bimal Roy's granddaughter, but not before he made his way through trial, error, and unplanned charisma. 

There were many things he did that were unusual. One of them was his role as a CBI officer disguised as a thief in Krishna Shah's Shalimar (1978), which his co star Zeenat Aman memorably described as a film where she, an English speaker, had to speak predominantly in Hindi, and he, a Hindi speaker, had to speak in English. In retaining his salt of the earthiness and his robust Punjabiyat, Dharmendra was a superstar who communicated directly to his audience, as authentic and real. There was no artifice in his performance, no superficial gloss in his presence. 

Whether he was infamously growling at tabloid journalists in his youth, drinking himself silly on shoots (as did many in the days before superchefs and supermanagers) or romancing Hema Malini, the object of every co-star's attention, he was himself. Son of Punjab. Man of the people. Hero of the working class. 

He will be missed.