Dharmendra’s life story
Dharmendra’s life story
About half a century ago, a mechanic from Ludhiana was upset with his work. He had spent more than two years while doing the job, but even then he was not able to collect enough money to salute that job. While starting the job, he thought he would deposit money and then leave for Bombay because he wanted to become an actor.
When he started his job, his salary was only one hundred rupees. With the increase of a hundred rupees, that amount reached to four and a half hundred, but even then he could not reach Bombay. It definitely happened that after joining that job, he got into the habit of living like a foreigner. The result was that he could not be able to keep his income safe and then his problems increased in his mind. When he used to study in his town of Phagwara school, he got into the habit of watching the film.
After reaching college, his illness caught even more vigor. B.A. Prior to doing this, he also got rid of college education, but even then he could not go to Bombay. It required money to go to Bombay, and he could not demand those money from his family members. So he took another job — a small job — at an American firm making tubewells.
One day while drinking tea at a dhaba in Phagwara, he was thinking seriously — will I really never go to Bombay? At that point, he turned his attention to the announcement of the competition of new talent in Filmfare. He entered a photo-studio and took some pictures of himself there. Then on reaching home, he started measuring his whole body. The fair-skinned young man was five feet ten inches tall. Weighs 170 pounds and sews 38 inches wide. After filling this entire description in a form, along with his pictures, he posted the name of the editor of the Filmfare. For a long time, he waited for the response to Filmfare. Then suddenly one day he was called to Bombay.
In the month of 1958 in Bombay, there was a competition for new faces. He came first in that competition. Filmmakers like Bimal Roy and Gurudutt had taken his screen test. Then there was a formal announcement in the newspapers that one of the most talented artists in the new faces is Ludhiane’s mechanic, the name is Dharmendra! But despite topping the competition, he could not get work in any film immediately. He had already resigned from his flourishing job and was completely useless now. Dharmendra spent those days of unemployment in all-round deprivation, and dilemmas became his beloved. The dull atmosphere of Bombay was discouraging him every second. There was despair all around him, and surrounded by those disappointments, he started preparing to return to his village. He had seen the true nature of Bombay’s film world. But here too, his luck once again tricked him.
The day Dharmendra was tying the bed to return home, a film producer named TM Bihari called him. Dharmendra had met Bihari’s director of films Hingorani a while back. At Dharmendra Bihari’s office, by his own estimation, when he arrived to give him his last salute, he seated him with great affection and then said, ‘Maybe you don’t know what I have done for you?’
He was to play the role of a hero in his film Dil Bhi Tera Hum Bhi Tere. Then they started waiting for Chitra’s muhurat and its shooting, but the misfortune once again dealt with them with great sincerity. The cover-up of the next-past worries and shortages started torturing them so much that they fell ill. This disease had lasted for a long time. When he was finally freed from that disease, nothing was left in his body except the structure of bones. Despite his pathetic state, he was not discouraged, but the mental problems he had to face in putting his face in front of the camera, we cannot record this day.
