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Journalism of Courage
For the world, he was a veteran actor Dharmendra, but for the people of Punjab, where his roots and heart were, he was called “Dharam paaji”, the elder brother.
Born and brought up in Punjab’s Ludhiana district, Dharmendra, who passed away Monday at the age of 89, held his roots close to his heart even after he became a legendary superstar.
In his conversations, he would often get emotional as he expressed how much he missed “Punjab di mitti” and wished he had spent more time with his late parents.
Named Dharam Singh Deol by his parents, the actor was born in a Punjabi Jatt family on December 8, 1935, at village Nasrali, Ludhiana district.
However, his paternal side’s ancestral village was Dangon, also in Ludhiana district, where his extended family still lives. The actor had a deep, emotional bond with Dangon, where he would often visit. During one such visit some years ago, he had generously “gifted” his ancestral land to his cousins and got it transferred in their name by visiting the local revenue office in Raikot.
Though his father Kewal Krishan was a government school teacher, the joint family owned several acres of agricultural land in Punjab, and Dharmendra always took pride in his farming roots, calling himself a “farmer’s son.” He said he was blessed to have grown up while living “simple village-life” while riding tractors and working in his family’s fields.
At the ancestral house in Dangon now live the late actor’s aunt Pritam Kaur Deol (his father’s brother, late Jagir Singh’s wife) aged over 100, her son Manjit Singh Deol (Dharmendra’s cousin), and his children.
“Some years ago, uncle ji (Dharmendra) visited us and transferred his 19 kanals of agricultural land in my father Manjit Singh and uncle Shingara Singh’s name. He had gifted his land to us. He would mostly come to meet us during night hours and return early morning, as a lot of people would gather during the day to have a glimpse of him. He never forgot us or his village roots. He was satisfied that his ancestral land was kept intact for years,” Buta Singh Deol, Manjit Singh’s son and Dharmendra’s nephew, told The Indian Express.
Buta added that Dharmendra was particularly very close to his cousin Shingara Singh, Manjit’s younger brother, and was “heartbroken” when he died during Covid. “He would speak to Shingara Chachaji over the phone almost every week. He had made a video call when Chachaji died. He had cried a lot,” Buta recalled.
Young Dharmendra had spent most of his years growing up in Sahnewal, now a town and an erstwhile village in Ludhiana district, where his father, Kewal Krishan, was posted as a government school teacher, and his mother, Satwant Kaur, was a homemaker. It was from Sahnewal that Dharmendra had taken a train to Bombay in 1958 after winning a talent hunt contest organised by Filmfare, a popular Bollywood magazine.
Dharmendra had said that his father was also posted for some time at Lalton, another village in Ludhiana.
Dharemendra had said that many people mistakenly consider Sahnewal as his native place, where his father was posted for a long time, but his ancestral village was Dangon.
“Since we lived and grew up in Sahnewal and people here gave so much love, that it started being assumed as my native village. It is Sahnewal from where I went to Bombay. But my paternal jaddi gaanv (ancestral village) is Dangon. I cannot forget that my roots are in Dangon. Since my father was transferred frequently, I could not visit Dangon often. I regret and heartily apologize for not visiting my ancestral village as much as I should have,” the actor had said emotionally.
Later, Dharmendra often made several surprise visits to Dangon, Sahnewal, and Lalton to meet old acquaintances and friends, mostly during the night hours.
During one such nostalgic visit to his house and local government primary school in Sahnewal Kalan (then a district board middle school), Dharmendra, accompanied by actor Vinay Pathak some years ago, had also driven a tractor in nearby fields.
He had told Pathak in a video interview: “I was born in Nasrali. I was just 2 when my father was transferred to Lalton and thereafter to Sahnewal. People gave us so much love in Sahnewal that they would not let my father’s transfer happen anywhere else. I studied in this school where my father taught.”
“Once I forgot to tie a turban and thought no one would say anything, as I was the son of the headmaster. But my teacher scolded me so hard that I never repeated the mistake. Not just my teacher, but my own father scolded me very hard. I now feel shy and humbled when people call me handsome or praise me,” he had remembered.
“Meri jadein yahaan hai, isko chodke kidhar jaa sakta hun. Agar main Bombay mein bhi hu, meri aatma idhar hi rehti hai (My roots are here, how can I leave or forget Punjab? I may live in Bombay, but my soul lives here),” the legendary actor had said during his Sahnewal visit, embracing his Punjabi roots.
Remembering the good old days in Sahnewal, he had said, “I remember how I used to stand in queue for hours to get the tickets for the latest movies.”
Dharmendra had also visited the Sahnewal railway station, the local railway tracks and a nearby pull (bridge) where he would often sit for hours and dream of going to Bombay to become a superstar “like Dilip Kumar”.
“Aaj bhi uss pull pe jaata hu to uss pull se kehta hun ji ki Dharmendra tu actor ban gaya yaar, tera sapna poora ho gaya (Even today when I stand on that bridge in Sahnewal, I speak to that bridge and say ‘Dharmendra, you have become an actor, you dream has been achieved),” a teary-eyed Dharmendra had said in another interview.
Standing at the Sahnewal bridge, Dharmendra had said: “This bridge is special as I would sit here for hours. I am deeply attached to this railway station as it became a medium for me to reach Bombay. Earlier when we lived in Lalton, there was no train connectivity. We got extremely excited on coming to Sahnewal seeing trains and railway tracks. That’s when I started travelling to Ludhiana city. I am also deeply connected to Phagwara town where I had taken admission in a college and have several friends. From Phagwara, I used to go to Jalandhar to watch films in Jyoti Cinema.”
Dharmendra had said that a Frontier Mail train towards Bombay used to cross Sahnewal railway station in the night. “I used to be so excited to hear the sound of its engine sitting in my home. I would pray in my heart “Dear Frontier Mail, please take me to Bombay. God heard me and Frontier Mail made me sit in its lap and took me to Bombay.”
“I don’t feel like a hero or superstar when I am in Ludhiana. It feels homecoming,” he had said emotionally.
Remembering the 1947 Partition that went through the heart of Punjab, Dharmendra had said: “I was in Class 8 when the Partition happened. At that time, my friends were Abdul, Akram… we all loved each other so much and lived peacefully. Ratti bhar bhed bhaav nahi tha (There wasn’t an iota of discrimination). But now, this word ‘Partition’ shakes me from the inside. I tremble. It feels horrifying. When my Muslim teacher was leaving, I hugged him and asked: ‘Why are you leaving, master ji, please don’t go’. He said, ‘No son, we have to go’.”
Dharmendra recalled being under immense pressure to perform well in studies as his father was a teacher. “I had even told my mother to change my school. My father wanted me to do well in academics and become a teacher or a professor; but in my mind, all that ran was Dilip (Kumar) saab, Nargis, Madhubala,” Dharmendra had said, while kissing the wall of his school at Sahnewal.
“Later when I played the role of a professor in the film Chupke Chupke, I tried to impress my bauji with the on-screen role but he jokingly called me “ullu ka pattha”, the veteran actor had said in an interview.
In January 2002, the actor had given a pleasant surprise to Ram Singh, a farmer from Lalton village, at whose house Dharmendra and his family lived as tenants. Knocking at his door in the night, he came to meet the family as their old “Dharam”, not the superstar Dharmendra, and the humble actor had obliged the entire village with photographs as the news of his arrival spread.
In one of the interviews, Dharmendra, while proudly talking about his Punjab roots, had said that during the times when the “underworld” was very powerful in Bombay, actors would usually get scared after getting threat calls. “But I told them that if you try to harm me, the whole Sahnewal will come from Punjab. You have ten people, but I have an army. Ek baar bolunga aur truck bhar ke aa jaayenge Punjab se ladne. To tu mere se panga na le (The moment I make one request, people will come in trucks from Punjab to fight for me. Hence, don’t mess with me).”
Dharmendra’s first wife, Parkash Kaur, whom he married in 1954 when he was just 19, hails from Banbhaura village near Malerkotla in Punjab.
Dharmendra who also had a brief political stint after being elected as the Lok Sabha MP from Rajasthan’s Bikaner in 2004 on BJP ticket, had said that he felt “suffocated” in politics.
During a visit to Ludhiana in 2010, the actor said to The Indian Express: “I felt suffocated in politics. I was dragged into the field. The day I had agreed, I went to the washroom and banged my head into the mirror regretting what I had done. Politics is something I never wanted to do.”
His elder son and actor Sunny Deol was also elected as Lok Sabha MP from Punjab’s Gurdaspur on BJP ticket in 2019 but faced heavy criticism for “not openly supporting Punjab’s farmers during 2020-21 agitation” and never “standing for Punjab’s rights.” Sunny too left politics saying he wasn’t meant to be one.
At the fag end of his legendary career in Hindi cinema, the actor had changed his screen name from Dharmendra to ‘Dharmendra Singh Deol’ in the 2024 film ‘Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya’, saying he was “always a proud Punjabi, a proud Deol.”
Expressing how much he missed his parents, Dharmendra, while posting a picture with his father, Kewal Krishan Deol, had written: “Kaash maa baap ko aur waqt diya hota (Wish I had spent more time with my parents).” Dharmendra had stated that one realises the value of parents only when they are gone, as he had revisited the lanes of Sahnewal.
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