Dharmendra remains a superstar!

By: Upala KBR, Mid-Day
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Filmmaker Anil Sharma has almost completed the shooting of his multistarrer Apne, featuring Dharmendra, Sunny Deol, Bobby and Shilpa Shetty. But there's one thing Sharma is not going to forget in a hurry.

Even though Dharmendra has been off the filmi radar for a while, his fan following could put even the reigning superstar to shame, as he discovered while shooting for the film in Chandigarh.

Train wrecked!

Says Sharma, who is working with Dharam after Hukumat, "This incident happened when we were shooting in Chandigarh. The shot was an action sequence and had Dharamji cycling alongside a train.

Slowly, word got around that he was shooting such a sequence nearby and a crowd of nearly 20,000 people turned up to cheer him on!"

Sharma says that garam Dharam gets very involved with his work, so he really enjoyed all the attention he was getting from the fans.

"When we started shooting the scene, he was really charged up. All that excited cheering really got to him. He started cycling so fast that he actually overtook the train and went past it! It was unbelievable! Un mein itna josh aa gaya ke woh train ke aage nikal gaye! Him overtaking the train was supposed to be the next shot but both shots got canned at one go."

Kissa fans ka

Sharma adds that he's seen this sort of adulation for the yesteryear superstar before too. He says, "Every time the public sees him, they go mad. Sometime ago, we were shooting in Bangkok and an entire battalion of Indians turned up asking for him. It happened in Sydney too, where sardars kept asking us if Dharamji was coming or not. They were all so anxious to see him."

Yet again in Rajkot, Sharma encountered the crazy adulation of Dharmendra's fans. He says, "The stadium required 15,000 fans but we had to change the crowd every two hours. There were thousands more waiting outside to watch Dharamji in action, and if we wouldn't take them inside they would create a ruckus outside.

They would even clamour up outside the hotel where we were staying, demanding to meet their idol. Dharamji was amazing. He was very patient and would always greet his fans wherever he went. Sometimes they would wait till 2 am to meet him but Dharamji never complained."

Family affair

Talking about Apne, Sharma says that the film is an emotional story about a family of boxers; Dharmendra plays the father, while Sunny and Bobby play his sons.

Anil adds, "Dharamji has put in a lot of effort for the role. He's in full form, has lost weight and is looking great. He exercises and does yoga for one hour every day. Tehelka mach jayega when you will see the Deol family on screen!"

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