PeepingMoon.com’s MARK MANUEL pays tribute to Bollywood’s original He-Man DHARMENDRA who he knew well for years, loved, respected and admired, on the great actor’s death at 89 today…
 
I didn’t think he’d go without a fight. Not Dharamji. Not even when the Grim Reaper was waiting outside the ICU of Breach Candy Hospital two weeks ago. Knocking impatiently. And he was hooked onto life support systems that kept him alive. The hospital holding its breath. His family standing in the corridor outside. Stony faced and unbelieving. Or sitting with unseeing, teary eyes in the carpark below. The media insensitively writing him off. Preparing his Obit. But friends and fans, all of Bollywood itself, rattled Heaven’s doors. Imploring God for one of those spectacular and impossible miracles Hindi cinema teaches us to believe in. While Dharamji himself valiantly held on. Drawing upon every reserve of the great physical strength of his fighting Jat ancestors to disdainfully cock a snook at Death. Advising it not to be proud. I knew it wouldn’t happen then. Or there. When he went, and he was already well past that date, Dharamji would go only when he was ready. And he would go from his home. Or maybe his farm. Surrounded by people he loved. The family knew of his indomitable spirit. And got Dharamji discharged. They took him home. Kept him warm and comfortable. The ventilator doing the rest. But this morning, 14 days shy of his 90th birthday, as if tired of playing the invincible hero and He-Man, Dharamji quietly slipped away. Hours after the poster of ‘Ikkis’, his final film, a war drama Christmas release, made social media. I don’t think he could resist a dekho at his last hurrah.
 

I had much admiration and respect for this simple Jat from Ludhiana who came to Bombay at 25 in 1960 to entertain us. “I was a school teacher’s son who wanted to be an actor simply because it is human nature to want to be loved, liked and admired,” Dharamji told me when I interviewed him on his 75th birthday. “I just wanted a Fiat car, a flat, and to be seen on posters. My co-stars were driving Impalas and Chevrolets. I thought, if I don’t make it in films, I could use the Fiat to become a taxi driver.” But birthdays did not bring him joy. Not even landmark birthdays. The reason being, Dharamji missed his parents on this day. He told his story simply, candidly and honestly. And he spoke from the heart. The veteran actor carried a tattered and faded letter in his pocket. It was the last one that his Mother wrote to him from their Sanahwal village in Ludhiana. Dharamji read it on every birthday, kissed it, and reverently touched the letter to his forehead. He did that before me. Tears rolling down his cheeks. “What to celebrate my birthday when the person who gave birth to me is not here?” he said to me emotionally, crying with the raw heartache of a strong man unashamed to show his feelings and tears. “I’m very sentimental,” he said, “I don’t enjoy birthdays without my parents, I pray to them to help me be a good person, to give me the strength to make others happy. I like seeing smiling faces.” I could not have wished for a more blessed ending to the gracious and generous life of this great and giving man – a reunion on his 90th birthday on December 8th with his parents in Heaven.