Old Video Shows Dharmendra’s Late-Night Calls to Hrishikesh Mukherjee After Losing ‘Anand’

Veteran actor Dharmendra, who passed away at 89 on Monday, once shared a poignant and light-hearted anecdote about the night he drunkenly refused to let director Hrishikesh Mukherjee sleep after learning that the iconic role of Anand had been given to Rajesh Khanna instead of him. In a resurfaced interview clip, the legendary star recounted how Mukherjee first narrated the story to him during a flight from Kolkata, excitedly promising him the lead role. “Hrishida told me the entire story of Anand… ‘Dharam, you will do this, you will do that’,” Dharmendra said, only to later discover that filming had begun with Khanna in the titular part.

Visibly emotional yet humorous in his retelling, Dharmendra described how he spent an entire night repeatedly dialing Mukherjee’s landline after a few drinks. “Main phone karta rehta tha… ‘Mujhe role de, yeh kahani tune mujhe sunayi thi!’ (Give me the role; you narrated this story to me!),” he said in Punjabi, mimicking his own persistent ringing. On the other end, a patient Mukherjee kept replying, “So jaa Dharam, so jaa (Go to sleep, Dharam),” until dawn broke. Despite losing the career-defining role, Dharmendra harbored no bitterness, and the two went on to collaborate on several classics, including Anupama (1966), Satyakam (1969), Guddi (1971), and the evergreen comedy Chupke Chupke (1975).

The 1971 film Anand, directed by Mukherjee and written by Gulzar, became one of Indian cinema’s most beloved tear-jerkers, with Rajesh Khanna delivering the immortal line “Babu moshai, zindagi badi honi chahiye, lambi nahi.” Dharmendra’s candid admission of disappointment, delivered with his trademark warmth and self-deprecating humor, has resurfaced as a touching reminder of his humility and deep passion for meaningful cinema. Fans and colleagues have flooded social media with the clip following his death, celebrating the grace with which he accepted professional setbacks while forging lifelong friendships in the industry.

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Dharmendra’s last rites were performed on Monday evening at Pawan Hans Crematorium, attended by Bollywood icons including Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, and Aamir Khan. He is survived by sons Sunny and Bobby Deol and will be seen one final time on screen in Sriram Raghavan’s war drama Ikkis alongside Agastya Nanda.

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