It was reporter’s luck at work in 1980.
A vadiyar (priest) from Madras told an Iyengar family in Bombay that he’d conducted a south Indian-style marriage ceremony for Dharmendra-Hema Malini.
Serendipitously, there was an invitation to a junket to Madras to cover a shooting the very next day. Armed with a tape recorder and the name of the temple where the priest could be found, an early morning adventure was attempted in Madras. The priest was traced and he unwittingly spilled the details. Hema Malini and her family had not even dreamt that anybody would get to hear about him, so the priest had not been sworn to secrecy.
The ceremony was conducted in the Juhu apartment of Hema’s brother. Dharmendra wore a dhoti like a south Indian groom. His father was also present. The priest held back nothing.
In 1980, the Internet and digital speed didn’t exist. Only a call from a landline was possible to inform the office back in Bombay that we had a scoop in our hands. To complete the piece, one more call was needed — to Hema Malini’s mother Jaya Chakravarthy who confirmed the ceremony along with a quote that her son-in-law was closer to her age than to Hema’s.
A late-night flight from Madras, typing feverishly on a manual typewriter, stopping the press to add a four-pager in the centre of Star & Style with a hastily stuck strip on the cover announcing the Dharam-Hema marriage, and it was out in the stands the next day.
It caused a social quake and set a pattern for men in a similar situation.
Thus far, a hero with a wife and kids marrying his girlfriend was unheard of. Whether Raj Kapoor-Nargis or Shashi Kapoor-Shabana, married men had romanced their leading ladies but never walked down the aisle with them.
The news even made it to Parliament.
Hema Malini, stunned that it had leaked, denied the story. Until she announced her pregnancy a few weeks later, confirmed the ceremony and said, “Now nobody can raise an eyebrow.”
Dharmendra had a different reaction. He was more astonished than upset. “I can’t imagine how you met that priest and got the story,” he said to me with a chuckle.
That was Dharmendra. The actor who was never the No. 1 star but outlasted all competition. The actor who was rarely feted by awards committees but outperformed his colleagues, his repertoire a mix of action, romance, comedy, wackiness and sobriety. The actor whose costars ranged from Shammi Kapoor and Amitabh Bachchan to Ranveer Singh and Agastya Nanda. His “kutte kaminey” dialogue popular all through the 1970s and ‘80s, his soft face and strong physique making a winning contrast.
Personal moments collected over several decades of interviews and off-the-record chats include one where he sent across a message that he was hurt because an article I had written had referenced a series of similar-looking films and concluded that he needed to take a break. When he received a bouquet of flowers after the article, he melted.
“Those flowers, they did something to me. I can’t continue to be upset after getting your flowers,” he said to me. It was followed with the request, “Darling, say anything you want to me. But don’t write it so publicly.”
He had a farmer’s soft corner for flowers and often referred to the day he came to Bombay (as it was called in the late ‘50s) and was received by Filmfare staffer Gulshan Mehta with a bouquet of flowers. He was the magazine’s discovery and his welcome couldn’t have been warmer — a lady plus flowers.
He once told me that he was an extremist. “I did two shifts every day,” he recalled being a workaholic. “I’m an extremist in some things. In my love, my affection, my booze.
“I used to drink heavily. Gradually I realised it doesn’t work for me. If you want to look the same, have the same stamina, same thinking, boozing does affect you. Ever since I gave up drinking, I haven’t touched it.”
“I feel if I hadn’t boozed so much, I would’ve been a different Dharmendra. I would’ve concentrated much more in a much better way. I couldn’t, I was just flying. But without harming anybody I have enjoyed life. But now that I’ve left drinking, I feel I can enjoy (life) more than I used to. Sharab peeke kuchh door ho gaye thay, chhod ke apne paas aa gaye hain,” the actor said poetically.
And he told himself that if a boy from Punjab could resolve to become an actor, why couldn’t he resolve to give up drinking? “God helps those who help themselves,” he mused. “My very breath used to tell me, ‘You’re going to be an actor’.”
He “resolved” to give up the bottle several times before he finally turned teetotaller and went back to his roots at his farmhouse.
When he’d occasionally go on the wagon, he would announce it with a big grin. He once did an early morning photo session at home for me where he posed with his dumbbells and then sat behind the bar with a mug of lassi as photographic proof that he was abstaining from alcohol.
During the Khalistani movement in the ‘80s, he spoke about it. Trustingly, off the record. That was the kind of bond one shared with him.
Becoming a part of the film industry was both an entry into a magical world and an eye-opener for him.
“In Punjab you have a different view of the industry. I never knew that all the actors won’t be meeting each other every day. I thought Dilip Kumar, Raj Kapoor, Dev Anand must be playing badminton together, sitting together and talking. Nutan must be coming there, Waheeda and other actors. There must be great rapport and affection between them, what we see on the screen,” he said.
“I thought they’d all be living beautifully together. I thought I’d go to Bombay, meet Nutan, I’d have my food with her. A boy from a village with a dream of a different world. Now times have changed, with television everybody knows how it is.
“I used to even think that actors, that Raj Kapoor, Madhubala, Dev Anand, they don’t grow old, I don’t know what kind of thinking it was. Like actors were different from other human beings. Like the film industry was a jannat I had to get into.
“I came here and saw, oh, my God, they were so nice at parties like long lost brothers. Then you hear Raaj Kumar saying something about Rajendra Kumar and vice versa. A totally different picture from what I would dream about.”
But the unabashed admiration for Dilip Kumar lived on.
“When Bandini (1963) was being made, Dilip Kumar came to meet Bimalda and others. I was dying to go and hug him. He saw me there but I couldn’t bring myself to go up to him. Sometime later, L.P. Rao (of Filmfare) wanted to shoot some pictures, so I went to their office. They wanted me to put on some makeup and I asked, why put on makeup? They said, it’ll look nice in the transparencies (photographs),” he said.
“A girl did a bit of makeup on my face. Rao asked me, ‘You know who that is?’ It was Farida, Dilip Kumar’s sister. I told her that it was my desire to meet him, I was his biggest fan. She appreciated it and they were all apparently talking well about me, that his face is good, he’s a rising star, etc. The wind carries all this and it fell on my ears too. But I’ve never let it go to my head.
“I went to meet Dilip Saab and we talked till 1.30 at night. A newcomer with the king of acting. He was also an emotional man. He talked to me of his past, how he came from Poona, they had a fruit business which fell on hard times. He talked to me like I was his old friend.
“For me, just to be sitting in Dilip Kumar’s company was a dream come true. There was khaana and much conversation. In the ‘60s, Pali Hill would get a bit cold at night. When I left, he gave me a sweater. I told myself, I’m not going to return this, it’s from Dilip Kumar.
“Much later, I appeared on a TV show for Saira Banu and Dilip Saab and I mentioned that I had a sweater he’d given me. He immediately said, ‘Yes, I had bought two of them, one Nasir (his younger brother) took and the other went with you.’ So he too remembered that sweater after so many years.”
Clothes led him to his sons.
“The other day, I was wearing a pink shirt when Sunny asked me if it was mine. Earlier, Bobby had enquired if it fit me. So I realised that it was Sunny’s. Bobby used to help himself to Sunny’s shirts, wear them, spray the cologne Sunny used and keep it back. So Sunny’s shirt had gone to Bobby and from there it had somehow come to me with my clothes. We are more or less the same fit,” he chuckled.
Dharmendra’s self-assessment gave him much satisfaction; he revelled in the nature he was blessed with.
“One thing that never changes is a man’s fitrat, his innate nature,” he stated. “Meri fitrat mein Bhagwan has given me mohabbat. I’m most blessed because it brings people close to me and I get close to anybody. If somebody smiles at me, I extend my hand. If somebody extends his hand, main seene se laga leta hoon. That’s always been my nature. It’s my biggest plus point, it’s a blessing.”
For him, the love he received as an actor made the film industry the best place in the world.
“From Dilip Kumar to Shah Rukh, Salman, Aamir, they all love and respect me. Jinke aaj har zubaan pe charche hain, unke dilon pe hum dhadakte hain,” he remarked with pride.
“Dilip Kumar once said on a stage, ‘I wish Allah had made me like Dharam’. That was the biggest compliment for me. Once at Caesar’s Palace, Sunil Dutt, Nargis were all sitting and someone asked, who’s the handsomest? Nargisji said, ‘My husband is there, Dharmendra is also in the room.’
“On Koffee With Karan, when he asked Jayaji (Bachchan) who’s the sexiest man, I wondered, ‘How can a man be sexy? Only a woman can be considered sexy.’ When Jayaji talked of me, my respect for her shot up. All these compliments don’t go to my head, they make me humble. All of them speak well of me, that’s my real earning.
“It’s human nature to want to be loved, liked and admired. I’m so grateful that people still love and like me so much.
“I love this profession so much, I could never put a price on it. Films mean more to me than money.
“There is no place like the film industry.”
Another memory. When second son Bobby was ready to debut, he proudly said, “Like Sunny just told you, it just means one more car will be going from this bungalow to the studios.”
But a follow-up question on whether he’d feel the same way about his daughters if Vijeta or Ajeeta were to also become actors, his reply was, “Darling, please don’t write that you even asked me this question.”
But he saw life change in so many ways that he reluctantly but gradually began to admire third daughter Esha’s independence. In fact, he’d begun to lean on Esha as someone who brought the family together and took care of everybody.
A man who had two families in two bungalows a stone’s throw from each other. Two families that respected the distance yet grew to accept each other with grace.
But he spent his last years away from both bungalows. “Dharamji is happiest on his farm,” remarked Hema a few years ago. “He’s all the time doing something there. Sometime back, he started building a road, even personally pitching in to get it ready,” she’d noted with amusement. The farmer was back to where he came from.
Poignantly, one of the last parties he attended was about Hema’s 75th birthday, where Zarine and Sanjay Khan flanked him all evening to keep other guests from disturbing him.
His memory had begun to dim. When he heard my name, he turned and said, “We were good friends, weren’t we?”
One of his last media interactions was during Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahani where he was happy just to be there, even saying, “Thank you for asking me this question,” while he peered with a flicker of recognition.
With the pagdi rasam on the 13th day, the turban will be passed on to Sunny, his first born who has already begun to shoulder the responsibilities of the eldest male member of the family.
Farewell, Dharmendra Kewal Krishan Deol. You came and conquered a world where you were an outsider. You’ve moved on, leaving behind a dynasty that’ll carry your surname forever.