As the world mourned the demise of the he-man Dharmendra, Saira Banu had put up a memorable post stating how Dharmendra and Dilip Kumar were like brothers. But this camaraderie extended not only in Mumbai but also in Bengal, when the two starred together in the 1966 Bengali film Paari, directed by Jagannath Chattopadhyay with music by Salil Chowdhury. What more, when the same movie was re-made in Hindi by Chattopadhyay as Anokha Milan, the two leading actors stepped in to reprise their roles.
While Dilip Kumar was literally a find of Bengali director Amiyo Chakravarty and made his debut in films through Jwar Bhata, Dharmendra on the other hand did Paari in 1966, post which he was never seen in any Bengali film.
Dharmendra and Dilip Kumar shared screens in Paari which was an adaptation of Jarasandh’s work. It also starred Pranati as the female lead. Interestingly, both Dharmendra and Dilip Kumar gave much of the dialogue delivery in Bengali. Kumar in fact, had such a bond with Bengal that he had learnt the language as well and was said to be an admirer of Uttam Kumar.
The plot revolves around Tara (Pranati) who has an older brother in Calcutta and she lives with her parents and younger siblings. She befriends Ghana (essayed by Dharmendra) and often meets him near the riverbank. When she gets abused by her elder brother’s friend, no one comes forward to marry her. When the villagers start disrespecting her and the family, Ghana fights for them and end up in the prison by killing someone. She tried to bail him out of the situation and the only way left for her was to marry the local police inspector.
She never found marital bliss and, in fact, during one of the episodes of struggle hits him with an axe for which she is arrested and sent to prison, only to find out that Ghana has still been serving time at the Andamans. Dilip Kumar plays the jailer of the Andaman prison, with his character name being Vijay in the movie. When she finally meets Ghana, he refuses to marry her, leaving her with choices like living the rest of her life alone or killing herself.
While Dharmendra played the traditional village-boy who stuck to his morals and respect, Dilip Kumar, who only enters in the second half and has an extended cameo, plays a more suave and charismatic character, one who could speak English fluently with bits of Bangla thrown in. Interestingly, Dharmendra and Dilip Kumar never had long scenes during the movie. It was perhaps just for a couple of scenes that they both got together, which probably leads to a combined shared screen time of 10-15 minutes (approx.).
Paari became the only Bengali and Hindi film, through its remake, where the laurels of Indian cinema, Dharmendra and Dilip Kumar, ever shared space on-screen. While both have cult movies like Mughal-e-Azam and Sholay to their names, they never shared screen space but have always shared a very close bond.
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