Garam-naram Dharam, the OG multiflex man

In the pantheon of cinema, there is more than one iconic Dharmendra: action hero of Raj Khosla's 1971 Mera Gaon Mera Desh; knife-wielding original angry young man in Nasir Hussain's 1973 Yaadon ki Baaraat; funny half of Veeru-Jai in Ramesh Sippy's 1975 Sholay. Dharmendra Kewal Krishan Deol was also post-post-Independence India's 'He Man', when such a term was used as a compliment, and not in today's ironic sense. Yes, he punched villains and flexed muscles in films like Phool Aur Patthar and Rakhwala. But he also wept, wooed and wisecracked with a vulnerability that made him irresistible. Water tanks have never been the same since his 'high-tened threat' in Sholay.

Emerging in the 1960s, Dharmendra bridged the gap between Nehruvian idealism and disillusioned realism of the 1970s. A farmer's son who became the nation's fantasy, his characters didn't just reflect India, they refracted it, showing us what we were becoming: impatient with authority, intoxicated by love, and increasingly performative in our masculinity. As India moved from socialist dreams to cinematic escapism, Dharmendra adapted without losing his soul, or shirt. He was the original 'multiflex' man, his appeal cutting across regions and classes, much like the India he represented: plural, paradoxical, and perpetually in flux.

In Satyakam, he delivered one of Hindi cinema's most searing performances - a man of integrity crushed by a corrupt world. In Guddi, he played himself, a meta cameo that revealed the man behind the myth, charmingly self-aware. The term 'passing of an era' may be a cliche, but straddling post-Independence and pre-liberalisation India, Dharmendra represents the bubbling ferment of a nation that grew into its own, the lovable rogue we live with.