Dharmendra, whose irresistible combo of soft face and tough body made him the poster boy of endearing masculinity, and whose Venus-Adonis-like pairing with Hema Malini sold millions of film tickets and gossip magazines, passed away in Mumbai on Monday. Ailing for sometime, the actor was two weeks short of 90.

In the 1970s, a Hindi newsmagazine ran a readers’ contest posing the query, “Why I like Dharmendra?” The winning answer went, “If the question was, why I don’t like him, nobody would have won the prize.”

Everybody loved Dharmendra. The actor, who acted in more than 300 films over six and half decades, thrived even when a tsunami called Rajesh Khanna struck India in late 1960s and when Amitabh Bachchan’s Angry Young Man became the unofficial spokesperson of the nation’s angry young in early 1970s. Unfazed by fluctuating trends and fickle public taste, he remained a constant star on the Bollywood firmament.

Blockbusters like ‘Phool Aur Patthar,’ ‘Aankhen’, ‘Mera Gaon Mera Desh’, ‘Jugnu’, ‘Yaadon Ki Barat’, ‘Sholay’, ‘Dharam Veer,’ ‘Hukumat,’ made action films his province and created Hindi film’s enduring He-Man. But Dharmendra was more. He effortlessly romcom-ed as a botany professor masquerading as a car driver in the inter-generational favourite ‘Chupke Chupke’ and delivered his career-best act as the idealist engineer in ‘Satyakam’, both with director Hrishikesh Mukherjee who eternalised the ‘other’ Dharmendra.

Unpretentious and generous to a fault – the actor embodied the soul of rural Punjab. In one of his last films, ‘Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani (2023)’, Dharmendra reprised a classic ‘Hum Dono’ track, “Abhi na jao chhod kar, ke dil abhi bhara nahi.” (Please don’t go. I haven’t had enough of you).” His fans would be saying the same.

Whenever Dharmendra snarled, "Kuttey main tera khoon pee jaunga," or something like that, bad guys cowered, frontbenchers whistled and box-office queues became as long as a goods train. But that happened long after the actor struggled with a series of flops.

Producer-director O P Ralhan’s Phool Aur Patthar (1966) made him a star. In the film, he played Shaka, a thief with a conscience. In an iconic scene, a drunk and topless Dharmendra walks up to a scared widow (Meena Kumari) pretending to be asleep. He looks at her, spreads a quilt over her and walks away.

The scene not only established the character’s innate decency but also underlined his splendid physicality; two attributes that the audience, both male and female, would associate him with in their own ways. Here was an actor whose body men wanted to acquire, and women lie next to.

Born on December 8, 1935 in Nasrali village, near Khanna town in Punjab’s Ludhiana district, the school headmaster’s son developed a passion for moving pictures after watching Dilip Kumar's ‘Shaheed’ (1948) in Ludhiana’s Minerva cinema. That obsession persisted even after he was employed as a mechanic in an American drilling company. Mumbai beckoned. In 1958, he finished second in Filmfare-United Producers’ first talent contest. By then, he was married to Prakash Kaur and father of a child, now known as Sunny Deol.

Dharmendra confessed on Rajat Sharma’s ‘Aap Ki Adalat’ show that during his early years, a renowned producer told him, “I want a hero, not a hockey player.”

The actor lived in a rented single room over a garage in Versova developing a close friendship with fellow struggler Manoj Kumar. Film journalist Rajiv Vijayakar writes in the actor’s biography that Kumar stopped Dharmendra from leaving Mumbai and going to Delhi where he had landed up a job.

Dharmendra got his big break in Arjun Hingorani’s ‘Dil Bhi Tera Hum Bhi Tere’ (1960) with Kumkum as fellow heroine. More people noticed the kind-hearted doctor who falls in love with a murderer (Nutan) in Bimal Roy’s ‘Bandini’. Over the years, Hingorani and him would form a cosy director-actor team making hits starting with the letter, K -- 'Kab Kyun Kahan' and 'Kahani Kismat Ki' to name just two -- much like the Ekta Kapoor teleserials later.

His collaboration with Bengali directors widened his repertoire. Satyen Bose’s ‘Jeewan Mrityu’ and Dulal Guha’s ‘Pratigya’ were megahits. He wasn’t much of a dancer but the brio with which he expressed ardour while mouthing, “Main jat yamla pagla deewana” became the film’s highlight.

Unlike most stars of the time, Dharmendra was shorn of mannerism, barring a tendency to flare his nostrils when singing or screaming. Directors like Hrishikesh Mukherjee (‘Anupama’, ‘Satyakam’, ‘Chupke Chupke’) and Basu Chatterjee (‘Dillagi’, where he played a BHU-educated Sanskrit teacher), expanded his range, fashioned his bhadralok persona. ‘Satyakam’, a human tragedy, saw his best performance. But forget winning awards, he wasn’t even nominated for one, a fact that despaired him.

With ‘Dreamgirl” Hema Malini, Dharmendra formed a red hot romantic pair. Even in the ultra-violent ‘Sholay’, the scenes of romantic comedy between the two, are utterly charming. ‘Seeta Aur Geeta’, ‘Raja Jani’, ‘Jugnu’, ‘Pratigya’ and ‘Charas’ were some of the major winners they paired with. The real and the reel came together when they got married in 1980; among the finest examples of North-South fusion in Bollywood.

In the 1980s and the 1990s, the market for soft romances and gentle comedies receded. Consequently, Dharmendra focused more on fists and guns which ensured that his underclass fans remained steadfastly loyal. ‘Ghulami’, ‘Hukumat’, ‘Aag Hi Aag’, ‘Loha’, ‘Insaniyat Ke Dushman’, ‘Watan Ke Rakhwale’, ‘Tahalka’ were superhits of this era. The title of one film summed up his new stock-in-trade: ‘Paap Ko Jalaa Kar Raakh Kar Doonga.’

Much of the actor’s later career is a collage of forgettable films. Exceptions include Sriram Raghavan’s nuanced neo-noir, ‘Johnny Gaddaar’ (2007), Anurag Basu’s take on modern love, ‘Life In A Metro’ (2007), an aging NRI waiting for an elderly girlfriend (Nafisa Ali) and the rollicking action comedy, ‘Yamla Pagla Deewana (2011). Raghavan’s ‘Ikkis’, scheduled for release next month, will be among his last films.

In 2004, Dharmendra won the Bikaner Lok Sabha seat on a BJP ticket. Unlike Hema Malini, who seems to relish politics as a three-time MP from Mathura, the Punjab da puttar didn’t. Gossip mags called him ‘Garam Dharam’. But for many, he was a 'naram dil insaan' (soft-hearted guy) who helped out struggling artists and technicians, making guest appearances by the dozen. Even his real-life misdemeanours, which includes beating up film journalists once, didn’t change that image.

The Padma Bhushan recipient was a regular on Twitter (now X) till March this year building a healthy 770,000 followers. His posts revealed his love for farming and Urdu poetry. Not many know that Dharmendra also wrote poems.

During an interview to TOI, he once recited a few lines from one of his poems, ‘Main Kaun Hoon’: “Pyar, mohabbat duayein apki sejti hai jazbaat ko mere/ Isi liye aaj bhi jawan hu main/ Khata gar ho jaye baksh dena yaaron/ Galtiyon ka putla aakhir ek insaan hoon main. “(Your love, affection and prayers nurture my emotions/ That’s why I’m still young/ Please forgive me if I’ve erred ever/ After all, I am only human).”