Opinion Sharmila Tagore remembers Dharmendra on his birthday: Thank you for your light
Stardom can make people larger than life. Dharmendra, paradoxically, became larger by remaining human.
Stardom can do complicated things to people. But Dharam remained untouched by all that. He extended the same warmth to the spot-boys who rushed with chairs between takes, to the light-men perched on precarious ladders.(Illustration: C R Sasikumar) Looking back across the decades, the light that falls on Dharmendra remains unchanged. It is a curious thing to say about someone whose career has spanned such a vast and changing landscape of Hindi cinema, but that is what I have always felt: An unaltered, steady radiance. Perhaps it is because even when he was being celebrated as the “He-Man” of Indian cinema, or adored as one of our most beautiful stars, Dharmendra himself seemed pleasantly unaffected by all of it. He carried fame lightly as though it belonged to someone else.
My earliest memories of working with him go back to Devar and Anupama, two films whose emotional silences were as important as their articulation. What struck me, even then, was the gentleness behind his presence. On screen he could be arresting, almost impossibly handsome, but off screen he was unfailingly soft-spoken, with a kind of innate courtesy that did not need to be performed. He was yet to be the star he would become with Phool Aur Patthar. He went out of his way to put me at ease while I was still finding my place in the industry. He made my awkwardness of those early days feel less obvious. That generosity was a defining part of who he was.
In Anupama, Hrishikesh Mukherjee gave us a world built out of restraint, feelings that breathed beneath the surface, eyes that spoke more than words. Dharmendra understood that language instinctively. With him, you never felt the need to push. He had an intuitive grasp of stillness: How a character could convey warmth, longing, or empathy without being overdramatic. Watching him live the part was a lesson in quiet control. I remember thinking how unusual it was for a leading man, at that time, to be so comfortable with softness. There was no need for him to assert masculinity; he simply was, and that confidence allowed him to let the moment speak for itself.
Satyakam was perhaps the deepest journey we undertook together. Hrishida‘s world was never easy on actors; it required honesty, not performance. And Dharmendra rose to that challenge in a way that remains, to me, one of the most luminous achievements of his career. The moral anguish of Satyapriya was not something that could be externalised, it needed to be lived from within. Even now, when I think of Satyakam, what stays with me is the transparency of his emotions, untainted, unguarded, profoundly moving.
Although the characters he played in all the films, except Chupke Chupke, were all singularly angst ridden, they were extremely memorable.
But there were lighter times too, and they were just as memorable. Mere Hamdam Mere Dost was filled with the kind of effortless charm that came naturally to him. There was nothing studied or manufactured about his appeal, it flowed from his spontaneity, his lively sense of humour, and the boyish gleam he somehow maintained well into adulthood. His presence on set made even long, exhausting days feel easier. He had that ability, to lighten the atmosphere, to put people at ease, to make the work feel like a shared adventure rather than a burden. One always looked forward to coming to the set when Dharmendra was around.
And then, of course, there was Yakeen, with its double roles and its deliciously playful mystery and energy. The film required him to switch registers constantly — light to intense, charming to mysterious — and he managed it with an ease that masked the actual difficulty of the task.
The same actor who carried the weight of Satyakam could, within a few years, inhabit the delicious absurdities of Chupke Chupke with a lightness that seemed to defy gravity altogether. The lisp, the mock-serious botanical discourse — every gesture was precise yet appeared entirely spontaneous. Comedy, in his hands, became a form of revelation rather than escape. I have often lamented that our National Awards have historically treated humour as a stepchild of art; had they understood the true complexity of that role, Dharam’s Parimal Tripathi would have received the National Award.
Dharam was also a very magnanimous co-star. During the filming of Mere Hamdam Mere Dost, Tiger (Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi) was playing the West Indies–India Test in Kolkata, and it was his birthday. I wanted to take an early morning flight to be in Kolkata for the match, and to celebrate Tiger’s birthday. I asked Dharam if he could pull an all-nighter, he agreed graciously and shot till 7 am. He never spoke of the inconvenience, never made the air heavy. That gentle, wordless gesture truly mattered, and I am still grateful to him for making it possible for me to board the flight that morning.
After a brief hiatus from films, I was offered Sunny by Raj Khosla. Dharam’s Inderjeet occupies the screen for barely ten minutes, yet he made his screen presence profoundly memorable.
Over the years, I met him off and on, and each time he was his usual, warm, effervescent self. Dharam was a man who had never allowed fame to distort his values. Stardom can do complicated things to people. It can create distance, it can magnify insecurities, it can harden one’s relationship with the world. But he remained remarkably untouched by all that. He extended the same warmth to the spot-boys who rushed with chairs between takes, to the light-men perched on precarious ladders, and to the junior artists waiting on sets endlessly. He offered them the same easy smile, there was no pretence. The generosity came from the Punjab soil that inhabited him — open, warm, indifferent to rank. Dharam is now returned to that same soil.
The last time we spoke was over the telephone after my surgery. I had watched Chupke Chupke on my iPad in the hospital and called Dharam to tell him how brilliant he was and how much I relished his performance.
His screen image, of course, evolved over time: The romantic hero, the tragic idealist, the action star, the beloved entertainer. And yet, behind each of these avatars was the same man, one who believed deeply in sincerity, who valued relationships, who remained grounded through cycles of triumph and disappointment. He was, in that sense, a rare figure. Stardom can make people larger than life, Dharmendra, paradoxically, became larger by remaining human.
When I think of him now, what rises first is not a particular film, not even a particular scene, but a feeling of warmth, of reassurance, of camaraderie that was spontaneous. We often say that the camera captures what cannot be spoken. With Dharmendra it captured his essence: The kindness in his eyes, the steadiness of his presence, the innate goodness that coloured every role he played. Audiences responded to that, perhaps unconsciously. They trusted him. They felt safe with him. And trust, I believe, is the deepest bond an actor can forge with viewers.
It has been one of the privileges of my life to have shared some of my finest cinematic journeys with him. Those years shaped me as an actor and enriched me as a person. Dharmendra brought grace to every interaction, depth to every performance, and a quiet dignity to a profession that often overwhelms its own practitioners. I still regret not accepting Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani. Covid, doctors, fear— had stopped me. It would have been wonderful to share screen space with him after all those years. Alas, it was not meant to be.
In the end, his legacy is not just the vast body of work he leaves behind, but the gentleness with which he inhabited that journey. To have known him, to have worked with him, is to have experienced a rare and steady light, one that illuminated not just the screen, but all of us who stood beside him.
Yet somewhere, in the high noon over the fields of Punjab, I suspect he is still laughing his open, defenseless, immortal laughter. The lights dim in hundreds of small-town cinema halls. Somewhere a harmonica plays “Yeh dosti,” and young men who never knew a world without him feel, for the first time, the small ache of irreversible loss. And we, who spend our lives trying to trap truth inside the delicate net of art, will remember a man who simply lived it, authentically, carelessly, magnificently.
Thank you Dharam, my birthday twin, for the light you carried so lightly. I am sure with your entry into heaven; the Gods must be smiling “chupke chupke”.
Tagore is an actor
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