In Kolkata to promote his upcoming film Apne, yesteryear’s superstar Dharmendra shows how age has not diminished his charm and why he can still give his sons a run for their money
Express Features Service.

If the mad rush to get into the room was anything to go by, then Dharmendra is still a heartthrob for the scores of women who turned up to see him. He may have aged, but has lost none of his charm and in Kolkata to promote his film Apne, he lost no time in enchanting his women admirers. Dharmendra was in town to promote the film along with his sons Sunny and Bobby The hour-long wait certainly did not dampen the spirits of the admirers and for once the applause and catcalls were reserved not for the younger actors but for the older one.

Apne, by Anil Sharma who also directed the Sunny Deol starrer Gadar, stars the three Deols for the first time together in a film, which the director says, is all about family bonding and values. Dharmendra stars, as a former boxer who wants his sons to become what he was unable to — the World Heavy Weight Championship. For the older Deol, this will be his second film after his come back in Anurag Basu’s Life... in a Metro. Yet, having stayed away from the limelight for the past few years, Dharmendra says, it does not feel he has been away for long. “When I faced the camera I had the same enthusiasm that I had before. I feel like I have been born for this.” But he acknowledges that things have changed in the film industry and though he feels that there are a lot of good directors today, the films churned out by them are not impressive. “They are what I would call ‘fast film’ —films that are made, watched and forgotten.”

Coming back to Kolkata after a long time, Dharmendra says that the city holds a special place in his heart as one of his first films was the Suchitra Sen starrer Mamta. “That apart many of my films have been shot here, and I was a regular visitor to the city. I was in touch with Suchitra Sen and we used to talk over the phone.” But his Kolkata connection did not end with Sen, rather he went on to star in a number of films by Bengali directors like Hrishikesh Mukherjee whom he calls a dear friend. “I cried, and cried and cried the day he died.”

Of course, their were the inevitable queries of his doing films with Hema Malini, with an over enthusiastic member of the audience even suggesting a family film with the three Deols and Hema Malini. “We are waiting for the right script,” was his curt answer, while his sons sat sullenly by his side. With Papa Deol in full form, it was difficult for the younger Deols to say much, not that the female admirers seemed to mind. For them it was an evening well spent having a tete-a -tete with their favourite on-screen hero.