JAIPUR: Dharmendra’s enduring attachment to Rajasthan is steeped in stories of loyalty, affection, and uncommon humility — stories that overshadow his silver screen connections to a state where some of his greatest hits were filmed.The thespian’s passing Monday at the age of 89 brings to light fond memories of a star who touched lives far beyond movie theatre audiences. People here cherish him not only as an A-list film actor but also as a Member of Parliament from Bikaner and an investor in its larger cinematic universe.
As co-owner of the historic Amber Cinema, a landmark in Jaipur in the late ‘70s before its closure in the early ‘80s, Dharmendra’s willingness to stand by friends in difficult times is legendary. Even though the cinema struggled financially toward the end, he never second-guessed his partners. “He always kept his heart before his mind,” recalls Raj Bansal, a prominent film distributor. “He never demanded explanations about why the cinema was performing poorly, or why it shut down; not out of a lack of business acumen but because of an abundance of emotional investment. That was his nature, always trusting, gentle, and generous,” he adds.Bansal recounts the actor’s large-heartedness, narrating how a casual meeting during the shooting of ‘Main Balwan’ led to Dharmendra giving him distribution rights to a film that would go on to become a super hit.“I was sitting nearby when Rajkumar Santoshi was narrating the script for ‘Ghayal’ during a break. Dharm ji immediately caught on to the fact that I liked it and promised me the movie’s distribution rights on the spot. He kept his word; the film was a superhit, and it changed my career forever,” Bansal said.For Dharmendra, relationships always came before commerce. Among his closest friends in the state was Vijay Punia, then a youth leader whose fierce devotion to the actor gave rise to a unique film-location phenomenon.Punia would often land up at his shoots with a bus load or two of enthusiastic youngsters from the Jat community, be it in Jaipur or Jaisalmer. “We took it upon ourselves to guard, give him and his crew enough space, and throw out the occasional person who tried to get too close,” Punia recalls.Dharmendra eventually took notice of the constant presence of this group, and its leader.During the shooting of ‘Razia Sultan’ in Bikaner, the star finally walked over and asked Punia why such a large group always followed him from one location to another. “This is the Jat Police at your service,” Punia replied, a reference to Dharmendra’s Jat Sikh background. A friendship was instantly struck, one that would last a lifetime! Punia recalls how Dharmendra’s simplicity never waned, even during his political years. “Once, during his election campaign, Dharmendra expressed a desire to visit a farm. I took him to a friend’s place, where he insisted on resting on a charpoy under the open sky, before lunching on rotis cooked on a chulha (traditional stove). He was happiest in such rustic settings,” Punia remembers.Dharmendra’s stint as MP from Bikaner was brief and largely uneventful in legislative terms, but always marked by grace. “He never spoke ill of his opponent, Congress leader Rameshwar Dudi, during the campaign, insisting instead on always calling him his ‘younger brother'”, Punia said.Dudi reciprocated, making the contest one of the most cordial in electoral history.
