A hero with a heart, and remained one till the end.
"No conversation with the actor, a Sher Dil, who in the 1976 film Maa had subdued tigers and lions, and in Kartavya three years later, had narrowly been whisked away from the jaws of death while wrestling with a pair of snarling panthers, ever ended without a sher," Rediff Senior Contributor Roshmila Bhattacharya says about Dharmendra.
She recalls sitting in a deserted corridor of her office one evening, listening to Dharamji rhapsodise about 'anokhi kashish' and' anjane ehsaas' as he remembered a childhood infatuation which had ended abruptly when Partition divided not just a country, but homes and hearts too.
Roshmila first met Dharamji at a bungalow in Juhu, northwest Mumbai, during the shoot of Johnny Gaddaar.
He was around 70, but age hadn't withered him.
Togged up in denim jeans and a matching jacket, he was still the macho matinee idol she had grown up watching, who, if anything was far more -- for want of a better word -- hot!
The film's writer-director, Sriram Raghavan, laughed when she mentioned this, admitting that his young ADs (Assistant Directors) were all crushing on him.
What's in a hand? Plenty, when it's a teen kilo ka haath
To start with, both of us being strangers to each other, were tentative and exploring, but as I took him on a journey down four decades and some of much-loved films, memories came flooding back and he warmed up to me while I too grew in confidence, prodding him for details.
Occasionally, my eyes would stray to his hands, and I would remember how a scene in Raj N Sippy's Loha in which Dharamji's had hit a villain's henchman on the head and he had sunk halfway down the sand with that one Herculean blow.
Apprehensively, I wondered aloud where I would land if he raised his teen kilo ka haath on me.
"Probably land on Marine Drive or maybe the sea," I mumbled and he guffawed, assuring me that the maar dhaad was limited to the screen.
He even confessed that he had found that scene in Loha embarrassingly absurd and had tried to talk the action director out of doing it.
But Veeru Devgn had insisted, reasoning that since it was his 'haath', the audience would lap it up and after the release, sneaked Dharamji into Chandan theatre (also in Juhu) where he saw for himself the claps and whistles the scene elicited.
The darling who wanted to live in people's hearts
Loha was one of the seven blockbusters he delivered in 1987, but Dharamji didn't care for his 'He-Man' and 'Garam Dharam' image.
He shared that he had coined a sobriquet, 'Darling D', which defined him more correctly.
"Use it in this piece if you can, so others get to know it too," he urged.
I did, not only in that interview, which ran across three pages of a broadsheet, but in subsequent ones too and delightedly he would call me after reading them, and making a special mention of 'Darling D', praise me profusely for articulating his thoughts, dil se.
'Jeetey raho, khush raho, keep writing,' he would bless me, saying it was this love that everyone showered on him that kept bringing him back to the screen.
'It's the only way I know to stay on in the hearts of the people,' he would assert, adding with a poetic flourish, 'Naam aur shohrat ek nasha hai, chadta hai toh utar bhi jaata hai, par mohabbat woh jazba hai, jo dil mein ghar bana leta hai. (Name and fame, they intoxicate you, but the high doesn't last for long, love is an emotion which makes a place in your heart forever).'
His mother's son
Dharamji's mother, Satwant Kaur, was a homemaker and a poetess at heart.
When he became a star, she moved to Bombay to be closer to her puttar (son) and would sit up late into the night, playing a solitary card game, Sequence, as she waited for him to return home from a shoot.
And no matter how exhausted he was, Dharamji never went up to his room before stopping at hers for a quick chat.
It was then that he discovered her unheralded talent as, once in a while, she would read out some of the scribbled verses to him.
'I still have some of those writings,' he once confided emotionally, having himself picked up the pen to put his knowledge of Urdu to test and give verse to his emotions when he was laid up in bed.
Suchitra Sen and an unscripted kiss
He may not have been Bollywood's best dancer or even a great orator, but lines like 'padte hi unpar, jhuk jaati thi meri nazar, iss darr se ki nazar na lag jaye unhe meri nazar se... (When I see her, I immediately lower my eyes because I am afraid my gaze may jinx her)' would have swept any heroine off her feet, be it his 'Dream Girl' Hema Malini or 'Ice Maiden' Suchitra Sen.
Mrs Sen, or Madam, as she was reverentially called in Calcutta's studios, had a double role in Asit Sen's 1966 Hindi film, Mamta, a remake of his Bengali film, Uttar Falguni.
The mother, Devyani, is in love with Ashok Kumar, while her lookalike daughter is in love with Dharmendra.
In one of the scenes the younger couple is seen getting cosy, unaware that they are being watched.
'I knew I had to somehow convey to her mother, standing at a distance, that I am in love with Suparna,' Dharamji had reasoned, confiding that in a spontaneous gesture, he had dropped a kiss on Suchitra Sen's back, revealed by the low-cut blouse she was wearing, and the moment was captured on camera.
Only Dharamji could have gotten away with an unscripted kiss, even getting the nod from Mrs Sen to retain it in the film!
Photographic memories from aashiq1
Flashbacking to the Mamta days, and one of his favourite leading ladies who had since passed, Dharamji had asserted emotionally that, like Rabindranath Tagore, he would always associate the City of Joy with Suchitra Sen.
'Use this piece with the picture I send you,' he instructed, and minutes later, a smiling, monochromatic candid of him with the diva, from Dharmendra Deol's personal collection popped into my mail box from his iPad.
I was smiling too when I saw that his e-mail identity was aashiq1.
He had a habit of sending me pictures, some of which he later shared on Instagram, to accompany his interviews, and reacted with childlike glee when he saw them in print.
A black-and-white solo of him looking like a bashful Adonis...
A colour picture of an older Dharmendra, still as handsome...
A happy moment with Sharmila Tagore and Hrishikesh Mukherjee from the em>Satyakam shoot...
A goofy shot on a bike from Yamla Pagla Deewana...
An original poster of the classic Chupke Chupke...
A quiet moment with Jaya Bachchan at a promotional event...
For me, they are all priceless gems I have treasured.
The interview that wasn't for me...
Over the years, there were many interactions with Dharmaji, usually over the phone, since he was now mostly at his farm on the outskirts of Mumbai while I remained anchored to the city's concrete jungle.
I remember one in particular because it was a bonus, literally.
One morning, around 9 am, while I was busy with my household chores, I was surprised by a call from him.
'Kaise ho, Roshmila, shall we do your interview now?' he asked courteously.
I could picturise him with that warm, affectionate smile on his face, but I couldn't recall having asked for an interview.
However, I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth, and even though I was completely unprepared, I started asking him whatever came to my mind and he answered with refreshing, unfiltered honesty.
As soon as he rang off, I called the publicist who admitted that the interview had actually been fixed for a sister publication.
'But as soon as we mentioned the publishing group's name, Dharamji said he knew the journalist and would call her himself,' she shared.
They realised there had been a cross connection when the other journalist reached out saying she was waiting for his call.
Of course, I used the interview in my newspaper, and loved listening to his voice one more time as I transcribed it.
Dharam, Guddi and a dil se dil ka connection
We spoke for the last time during Karan Johar's Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahani in which Jaya Bachchan and he played Ranveer Singh's grandparents.
Guddi was perhaps the first Dharmendra film I saw as a child in Shillong, and since it was my third film screening that hectic Sunday, I fell asleep halfway through.
Of course, in later years, I watched the full film, not once but several times, and was excited to see him back with his Guddi, and so was he.
'We met at a recent event and as we smiled for the cameras, I was reminded of Jaya's first photoshoot; she's the same lovely girl she was back then with the endearing smile,' he asserted, adding sweetly, 'We are the same, Dharam and Guddi.'
Just like Jayaji hadn't changed for him, neither did Dharamji change for me over the years.
He was a hero with a heart, and remained one till the end.
Since the last few weeks, he's been everywhere... On television, in newspapers, his name on everyone's lips.
But one day, I told myself, all these voices will fall silent, and the one voice I always wanted to hear, will never again call me.
Even as the realisation was sinking in, I hear someone whisper in my ear, 'Shayari meri, baat yeh dil ki teri meri, jis dil ne suni, uss dil ne kaha, tab usne suni, chupke se keh di, dil hi har dil ko chu gayi, dil ne dil se jab bhi dil se keh di... (The words are mine, but what I'm saying is about both you and me; what the heart heard, it said, what she heard, she whispered back, and as one heart spoke to another, they touched every heart around them).'
He's gone, but his words will ensure this dil se dil ka connection never breaks.
Photographs curated by Satish Bodas/Rediff