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

​ Iih, just over 30, has made strange choices in life that makes him an odd one in terms of normative existence. At the age of 14, he rebelled, left the comfort of home, dropped out of school, and became a vagabond in a more in a more contemporary sense—romanticized unconventional mobile lifestyle. Home, the irrevocable condition, was not there for him, so he learned​ to take care of himself, remaining a political animal, an activist with the Gandhian ambition to change the w

​ 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

​ I was having breakfast in the canteen of the Film Nagar Cultural Centre ( FNCC) with my friend Chandra Shaker Reddy when K S Rama Rao, aka KSR, walked in.  All stood up and greeted him​ as he slowly walked across the hall towards our table at the far end. KSR is one of the most respected producer of Telugu films and happens to be the president of FNCC and this is his fourth term. Chandra Shaker introduced him to me. ‘I don’t know Hindi,’ he said. I retorted in the same tone

This is like a dream. He is living a dream that has a semb​lance of reality, and is fairly paradoxical in nature. It’s true that fact can get stranger than fiction. The life of Sanjay Kumar is a good example. He runs 60 schools, Shri Kashyap Rishi School of Unlearning and Relearning, in the Kashmir valley. These schools are liberal, open, nationalist, a shift from madrasa, where emphasis is on traditional Islamic subjects like the Quran and Sharia. Here young Muslim women, fr

Pawan Khera ran Delhi chief minister Sheila Diskhit’s office for more than a decade as the officer on special duty. Many insiders were of the view that he was more influential than the ministers, and most certainly the babus. Pawan was good, he’d make things happen, a doer, an organiser, the troubleshooter, the go-to person, and, must add, fairly intellectual yet down to earth, would help people, irrespective of their political affiliations, so very popular too. All the top e

​ Chandra Shaker Reddy, 50, is a man in control. He knows the city of Hyderabad like the back of his hand. He is emotionally driven but pragmatic; a doer, gets things done, fast, helps people selflessly. A family man who has a large extended family of friends.  Chandra Shaker is a natural leader, the go-to person for many, and he never disappoints those who seek his positive intervention in their lives. He goes out of the way to help friends when they are in dire straits, ca

There was a singer and an accompanist on the guitar.​ Rohit Solomon played guitar in the way that it felt like an orchestra, I could hear...