Dharmendra: The Most Handsome Star Who Once Struggled In Bombay With Big Dreams !! BY ALI PETER JOHN

Sometime towards the end of 1957, a handsome young man landed at the Bombay Central Station in Bombay. He was the son of a school teacher in the district of “Phagwara” and worked as a driller breaking rocks in different few quarries. But this young man had a complete change of heart and mind when he went to the city and saw a Dilip Kumar film called “Jugnu” and then saw the film at all the following shows. He had become one more die-heart fan of Dilip Kumar. He saw some more films starring the legend and decided that he had to become someone like Dilip Kumar who he had only seen on screen till then. He kept his ambitions to himself and when his ambitions got the better of him, he packed his bags and left for Bombay, the city of dreams even more than fifty years ago. He did not know what his future would be and how an unknown city like Bombay would treat a boy from nowhere.

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Dharmendra Singh Deol Struggles in Early Bombay Days

The young man’s name was Dharmendra Singh Deol. He did not have a place to live and was lucky enough to find a place to sleep at nights in different railway quarters in Matunga and Santacruz.  It was from this places that his odyssey began. He walked around the best studios in the best of cloths he had brought for himself before he left for Bombay and tried to catch the attention of filmmakers of any kind. It was a brim struggle all day, and nothing came out of it and so found a way out to forget his frustrations-all the illicit liquor bars of Danda in Khar and the fisherman’s village of Versova. His favourite bar however was “Pascoal’s Bar” in Danda where he could get a bottle of the “pure scuff” together with some of the best fish fried items all for only eight rupees. One more advantage of drinking in “Pascoal’s Bar” was that he could meet many other struggling actors, writers, song writers, directors who were waiting for their big break and younger boys from different parts of India who had all come to Bombay with the same dreams as him. The money he had brought with him was gradually dwindling and he could not easily find a way out of the tight situation he was caught in…

It was at this desperate stage in his life that he came across “Guptaji”, a small-time hotelier who ran canteens in most of the studios in the Dadar and Parel areas. This Guptaji who was known to be of great health, especially to newcomers, took a special liking for the boy from Phagwara, who was now getting to be a known face and a name called Dharam. Guptaji had all his eating places open for Dharam for whom he saw a very bright future as an actor (without going into the future, I must say that Dharam completely believed in Guptaji’s prediction for him more than in any other astrologer or “Pandits”) and when Guptaji’s prediction came true and Dharam was a star, he made it a point to see that Guptaji was invited to all the launchings of his film and gave him all the respect by giving him a pride of place among all the other dignitaries, stars, producers and financiers. This ritual was strictly followed by Dharam till the last stage of Guptaji, and he made his family follow the rituals….

It was around the time Dharam met “Guptaji” that he was also lucky to find a very good friend in need, and indeed, L.P Rao, a senior journalist who worked for the leading film Magazine, Filmfare. This Mr. Rao also had the same faith in Dharam that Guptaji had. He was not a very highly paid journalist, but he and his entire family of Rao’s from Mangalore were completely dedicated to journalism of a very high standard. Rao was not only a guide but also helped Dharam whenever he needed a few rupees and they were at their best as friends when they met at “Pascoal’s bar” were Dharam told him about his ambition and Rao gave him all the confidence he needed to carry on to face the tough competition that was growing all around.

It was during one of these meetings that Dharam told Rao about his only major dream and that was to meet his “God”, Dilip Kumar. He told Rao how he had gone from studio to studio looking for his “God” but had always failed. Rao did not promise him anything but asked him to come to the Filmfare office at VT the next afternoon. Dharam who had all the time reached Rao’s office before time because he knew that lunch at the canteen was available for anyone who managed to enter the canteen for only 25 paise. He had his lunch and then went to Rao’s cabin. Rao welcomed him as usual and told him he had a big surprise for him. Rao took Dharam to a woman colleague of his and introduced Dharam to her as a promising actor whose only ambition was to meet her brother, Dilip Kumar. The woman who Rao had already sounded of said, she had already fixed up a meeting with her brother at 7 p.m in his own bungalow on Palli Hill. Dharam did not know what to say or do. He spent the next few hours in Rao’s office and then Saeeda, the younger sister of Dilip Kumar took him in her car and draw him down to Palli Hill and they entered the legends bungalow.

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The meeting between the unbelieving fan and the legend lasted for more than 4 hours and was made more lively with the best of scotch and snacks served and their conversation took all times of interesting turns with every pec as they spoke in the most colloquium Punjabi and Dharam could not control his kissing the legends hands and trying to touch his feet which the legend did not allow him to do and the meeting indeed after a grand dinner of the best pshawari and Punjabi food which Dharam had never tasted in his life. Dharam was about to leave, but when the legend saw that it was growing very cold outside, he went in and brought one of his best woollen coats and casually handed it over to him and said, “le ja, thand mein kaam aa jayegi”. That night Dharam was so drunk with happiness that he walked all the way home dressed in the legends coat and felt as if a part of Dilip Kumar had already started living with him, that coat still have has a very prominent place in Dharmendra ‘s wardrobe for the last fifty off years.

That meeting was like some kind of blessing for Dharam because in the very next few days he signed his first film as a hero, “Dil Bhi Tera Hum Bhi Tere”, to be produced and directed by Arjun Hingorani with whom Dharam did all his future film two years ago when Arjun Hingorani renounced the world of films and now lives in Hrishikesh, the holy place with his wife.

Very soon, Dharam signed some of the best films made by filmmakers like Vipul Roy, Mohan Kumar, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, and some others, but he always had heroines who had stronger roles than him, but he was not in a condition to mind.

It was only in the late sixties that the filmmaker O. P. Ralhan saw the potential of his good looks combined with his rubberiest physique and cast him as a thief who comes across a widow in white played by the great star “Meena Kumari”. It took Dharmendra first one scene to change the tide in his favour. The scene showing him as the hero showing off all his rippling muscles looming large with a dagger over Meena Kumari in the film, “Phool Aur Patthar” took the entire nacho by storm and Dharmendra was a star and the film ran for more than fifty weeks in every leading theatre and it marked the beginning of a glorious chapter in the history of Indian cinema. The still most popular success story of that boy from Phagwara who was a fan of Dilip Kumar who has millions of fans even today fifty years after he started his odyssey.

And I feel extremely honoured and privileged to have been a close hand witness to this unbelievable story of undoubtedly the most handsome hero who have ever come to Indian cinema. Dharmendra Singh Deol was voted one of the most top ten handsome men in the world in the mid-seventies. The people who took his decision had to admit Dharmendra into the league, if not, they would have gross injustice to one of the most handsome creations of God.  

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