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Dharmendra is one of the most celebrated actors of the Indian film industry, is popular for his stunning looks and golden hear​t, a rarest of rare combinations that sets him apart from the rest. He died a couple of weeks short of his 90 th birthday, last week. Though I have never had a conversation with him, he has had a presence in my life, intriguing me like millions of Indians, for all the obvious reasons. Here, I try to look at his life in words of people who knew him ve

Most memories are like dreams — intangible, fuzzy, fleeting and subliminal. However, sometimes, they have an exceptional timelessness that causes them to resurface at the mere hint of reflection. The collective national grief at Dharmendra’s demise impels me to go down memory lane — almost six decades in time. It was a lazy Sunday in the summer holidays of 1969. I sat with a pile of Enid Blytons in the outer courtyard of our old home on Station Road in Lucknow. A strapping ca

​ A haze of smoke rises from the ghats, mingling with the aroma of tea boiling in tin kettles. I’m standing by my window, witnessing a winter morning in North Kolkata. There’s something quintessential about winters here—something that belongs only to my city, therefore, to me. My family has lived here for generations. Kolkata defines me in mysterious ways. In the following sentences, I delve on some of these mysteries openly. The first sip of cha (chai—tea leaves boiled with

Picture: Mustafa Quraishi ​I hadn’t met Sankarshan Thakur for many years but occasionally ran into him at Khan Market where I'd greet him...

Nicholas Roerich at work in Naggar. Photo courtesy: Nicholas Roerich Museum, New York) 8 June 2025. I walked towards the double-storey...

I have never met Ryuichi Sakamoto and will never meet him as I came to know him after his passing. A pianist and a composer, his music...

I have been fortunate to grow up with loving parents. Not everyone I have encountered has been   as lucky. A broken marriage is rarely a...

Roop Kar​nail Singh is a free soul that seeks no social sanctions and is unrepentantly herself in this demonstrative world. Authentic and...

Radhika Rawlley is young at 71. She’s packing her bags to start a new life in Dubai where her son, Ishan, has recently settled down after...

I got married to Arun Bhagat when I was 19 years old, and for nearly 60 years we lived a fulfilling life together. When I lost him on my...

​ A people's person Ajay Upadhyay was a scholar, a thinker, a great ​conversationalist, and a valued friend. He blended seamlessly with...

​​​Tina Bedi is young at 80. She lives alone in an apartment in Delhi and describes this as is the most joyous (Anand Swarup Atma) phase...