One of the Bollywood icons, Veteran actor Dharmendra is mostly remembered for his powerful action hero avatar. On seeing Dharmendra standing in front of Villain with his strong height, wide chest and strong hands, the blood of the audience started boiling. But there was also a loss of this popularity of his personality and onscreen image.
Dharmendra with action hero image, Dharmendra with action hero, and Dharmendra with solid acting performance, was overwhelmed. Dharmendra’s without typical Bollywood frills, films with pure powerful acting are rarely remembered. But one such film ‘Satyakam’ is an iconic film. In this, Dharmendra’s solid acting had given so much life in his character that the iconic actor, late Farooq Sheikh had said that whenever he sees ‘Satyakam’, this film makes him shrink.
What was the effect of this film on the famous writer Ranjit Kapoor of the film industry, it has a different story. Ranjit had told that when his struggle was not giving any fruit at the beginning of his career, he was going to go on the path of crime but ‘Satyakam’ saved him. Let us tell this story …
Why Ranjit Kapoor was going to go on the path of crime
Ranjit Kapoor, who has written dialogues in many films like ‘Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron’ (1983), Shah Rukh Khan’s ‘Kabhi Ya Kabhi Na’ (1994) and ‘Khaki’ (2004), is counted among Bollywood’s big writers. But as a writer, this magnificent career was very struggling for Ranjit. There was a time when he was about to go on the path of crime. And then made under the direction of Rishikesh Mukherjee, Dharmendra’s film ‘Satyakam’ held his hand and stopped him.
In ‘The World of Rishikesh Mukherjee’, writer Jai Arjun Singh has mentioned this moment to change Ranjit’s life. Ranjit told him without disclosing the details, ‘I was going to go on the wrong path.’ Talking forward, Ranjit said, ‘I was with a friend, we just had to spend some time and (‘ Satyakam ‘tickets were tax free.’
He was accompanied by Ranjit along with a friend who slept bored with this slow film, but he was sitting in the hall, crying without sounding. ‘After watching that film, the world started to look like a very different place – I had fallen very down, but I picked up myself again.’ Ranjit again started the struggle and became a writer, who has an elevated status in Bollywood.
Dharmendra’s credit to this film gives the credit to change his life so much that when he directed the film ‘Chintuji’ in 2009, the film dedicated Dharmendra, Rishikesh Mukherjee and Narayan Sanyal (whose film was based on whose novel). Not knowing how many people, referring to ‘Satyakam’, often say that with full truth, the character of hero Satyapriya (Dharmendra), who is trying to live in the world by raising his head, changed him.
What was this in ‘Satyakam’?
This film of Dharmendra tells the story entangled in this question, ‘What is the truth?’ His character is dreaming of creating a new life by doing true engineering. But he wants to live his life with full idealism and ‘truth’. The story of the film is set in the 1940s and India is independent.
Satyapriya wants to move forward on his grandfather’s principles, who wants to see a new India standing on the foundation of idealistic principles. Therefore, he also starts adopting these ideals. He does not like to get recommendations for the job, do not know how to take a bribe to get the contractors work done. Even he does not want to think about using office property for personal work.
His first job is employed with a former prince, whose monarchy has ended with independence. Satyapriya knows that her owner keeps an eye on a girl named Ranjana (Sharmila Tagore). But going against his boss does not freeze him. The prince raises Ranjana. Satyapriya is now in this gilt too that this happened to Ranjana. He marries Ranjana, but further you see that he is unable to accept his wife from the heart.
In a scene, Ranjana shouts and says that I wish she died, so that she would be born ‘holy’ in the next life and Satyapriya would accept her from the heart. Satyapriya’s family never lives a happy life in the affair of idealism. After all, Satyapriya gets an incurable disease and then for the first time, he thinks of compromising her ideals for Ranjana and her child. But then Ranjana explains the real meaning of ‘truth’ to him.
Ranjana also gives a lesson to his grandfather, who was the ideal of Satyapriya, which makes him realize that he was only walking on the leak of truth and ideal in his ashram. In the outside world, Ranjana went on the difficult path of truth, which he considered ‘impure’.
‘Satyakam’ was a national award -winning flop film
The public could not connect with the hero who made her life a tough struggle story while walking on the path of truth. Therefore, ‘Satyakam’ proved to be a flop at the box office. But its emotional story, the direction of Rishikesh Mukherjee and the performance of Dharmendra were well appreciated. Even today, many people consider ‘Satyakam’ to be the most powerful performance of Dharmendra’s career.
Rishikesh Mukherjee had great confidence in Dharmendra’s acting. He also gave an important role to Dharmendra in his National Award film ‘Anupama’ (1966). His ‘Satyakam’ also won the National Award with Dharmendra. Later Rishikesh himself shifted to Slice of Life and Comedy films and made films like ‘Golmaal’, ‘Chupke Chupke’, ‘Guddi’.
On the other hand, the beginning of the 70s brought popular masala films for Dharmendra. Dharmendra became a superhit star in the industry focusing on the star and after ‘Sholay’, his career design changed completely. And in the midst of all this, serious films like ‘actor’ Dharmendra and his ‘Satyakam’ also went down with the attention of the people. But if there is a chance, then see ‘Satyakam’, which is comfortable on YouTube, you will be surprised to see the second side of ‘Heman’ Dharmendra.
—- End —-