Dharmendra obit: Hindi cinema’s first-generation superstar, icon of Indian masculinity

Dharmendra’s appeal among Indian audiences remained unblemished until the very end, generation after generation. During my father’s teenage years in the mid-1970s, Dharmendra was unquestionably the biggest superstar in Hindi cinema, with a strong and wholesome image. His distinctly salt-of-the-earth persona was utilised to great effect in classics like Mera Gaon Mera Desh (1971), Seeta Aur Geeta (1972) and, of course, Sholay (1975).

And a couple of years ago, I watched Johar’s hit romcom Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani, in a small Ranchi theatre. When Dharmendra’s character Kanwal was introduced onscreen, I heard one of the loudest cheers I have ever experienced inside a movie theatre. Well into his 80s, ‘Garam Dharam’ was still the undisputed champion of the masses, beloved by youngsters and old-timers and everyone in between.

A metonym for Indian masculinity

Think about the 1960s, when Dharmendra exploded onto Indian movie screens for the first time. During that decade, some of the biggest superstars in Hollywood were people like Robert Redford, Marlon Brando and Paul Newman. Of these, Newman is probably the closest fit for Dharmendra in terms of the kinds of roles they did as well as the popular image or persona they cultivated. The common thread with these three actors, however, is that they are all considered icons of masculinity.

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Images of Brando in On the Waterfront, or of Newman in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, or of Redford and Newman teaming up in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, were crucial to the way young American men thought about themselves as men. These were not just good-looking, smartly-dressed men, these were rugged men of action who nevertheless retained enough emotional clarity to appeal to the ladies as well. And when we think about the early phase of Dharmendra’s superstardom it was this combination of irresistible strength and undeniable vulnerability that worked for him in a big way.

Even a cursory analysis of his most enduring and beloved role should tell you exactly how this combination of traits worked. In Sholay, Dharmendra played Veeru, the quintessential rogue with a heart of gold. Alongside his friend and fellow crook Jai (Amitabh Bachchan), Veeru begins the film as an insolent, anti-establishment figure, fleeing the grasp of the righteous policeman Thakur Baldev Singh (Sanjeev Kumar) who represents the government and ‘polite society’. But when push comes to shove and it looks like Thakur would be killed by a gang of violent train robbers, Veeru steps up and does the right thing, saving Thakur’s life. Dharmendra, therefore, balanced two different kinds of heroic personas —the ‘rebel’ (outsider, anarchic, free as the wind) and the ‘soldier’ (son of the soil, dutybound).

Then there’s Veeru’s courtship of Basanti, the loquacious horse-cart driver who catches his eye from the moment he steps foot in Ramgarh, the village Thakur currently lives in, the village currently terrorised by the film’s villain, the dacoit Gabbar Singh. Veeru’s flirtation with Basanti begins as comic relief, a way for the film to lower the temperature. But over time, the relationship becomes a kind of emotional core for the film, as Veeru declares to Jai that he intends to settle down in Ramgarh after Gabbar is defeated — marry Basanti, have a bunch of kids and basically live out every man’s pastoral dream. Once again, Dharmendra balanced two ends of the masculinity spectrum — the ‘rake’ (promiscuous, motormouthed, a free agent) and the ‘family man’ (protective, genteel, responsible).

All the while, of course, Veeru never loses sight of his core functionalities as an action hero — he stands up for the weak and the dispossessed and eventually, he avenges the death of his best friend Jai by bringing Gabbar to justice.

Ageing gracefully, the Dharmendra way

Around the time of his 60th birthday, Dharmendra made the shift into playing benevolent patriarchs, indicating the road forward for his career as well as his onscreen persona. If Amrish Puri was seen as the face of hardliner, unyielding patriarchy in the 1990s (think Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge), Dharmendra quietly built a reputation as a kinder, more genteel counterpart. One of the first films that utilised Dharmendra this way was director Sohail Khan’s 1998 hit Pyaar Kiya Toh Darna Kya, starring Khan’s brother Salman Khan in the lead role opposite Kajol.

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His character in this film, Ajay Singh Thakur, is the wise, kindly uncle of Kajol’s character Muskaan, forming a counterpoint to her super-stern, super-strict brother Vishal (Arbaaz Khan) who has practically raised her since their parents passed away. Dharmendra played Ajay with a light touch and admirable sensitivity, as he rooted for the young lovers and over time, softened Vishal’s opposition to Muskaan’s relationship with the carefree Suraj (Salman Khan).

This began a decade-long sequence wherein we saw Dharmendra playing variants of the benevolent Indian patriarch, culminating in Apne (2007), wherein he fulfilled a longstanding dream by playing onscreen father to his real-life sons Sunny and Bobby Deol. As India gradually became a little less conservative from the 1990s onwards, Dharmendra’s characters, too, became more and more representative of societal progress and the loosening of social bounds. It’s fitting, then, that in his last film Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani, Dharmendra played a wheelchair-bound senior citizen who reconnects with an old flame, ignoring the pearl-clutching pleas of their respective children.

Until the end, then, Dharmendra was doing what he did best, being a role model for Indian men. Today, when there is such a raging debate on the role of onscreen misogyny in pushing real-life violence against women (look at the polarising response to Animal, for example), one realises the value of wholesome screen icons like Dharmendra. We will miss him dearly.