Guru Dutt (left) and Dharmendra.
Credit.Imprints and Images of Indian Film Music
Dharmendra's tryst with the tinsel world started in the early 50s when Filmfare conducted a talent hunt with the famed duo of Guru Dutt and Bimal Roy as the members of the main jury.
He was one among the many promising new artistes who made their way to the final round of audition.
But just before the finals, both Dutt and Roy were forced to miss it out due to different circumstances and it was finally left to Dutt's good friend -- Abrar Alvi -- to do the honours
Dharmendra did indeed impress in the finals and pictures of both him and Guru Dutt were splashed all over and it looked as though he would be the hero for Dutt's next film... but Dutt, a man of few words who could hardly convey his feelings properly, ended up ultimately not casting Dharmendra for his lead role in his next move, something which Bimal Roy did with Bandini.
It was just poetic justice when Dharmendra went on to replace Guru Dutt in Baharen Phir Bhi Aayengi, a project which was almost shelved.
The shooting of the movie, initially planned to be directed by Shahid Lateef, had started in early 1964 with Guru Dutt and Mala Sinha cast in lead roles.
But with Guru Dutt's untimely demise on October 10, the same year, the film was put on hold. However under the 'Guru Dutt Films' banner, the project was revived with Abrar Alvi stepping up to the director's chair.
It is presumed that Alvi, with the support of Dutt’s younger brother-- Atmaram -- rewrote the entire script and completed the halfway-through film, though with much delay.
Fate played a part in the casting of Dharmendra.
He was working at the time on a Punjabi film which got shelved after the lead actress Geeta Bali's death due to smallpox.
The movie was a commercial failure which Alvi said Guru Dutt had foreseen.
“Somehow he knew the film would not succeed. He lost all enthusiasm and would gladly have scrapped it, as was his way with things he did not find up to the mark, but he was too far gone, too committed to back out. He had taken a loan to make the film and there was no going back," Alvi recalls in Sathya Saran’s book Ten Years With Guru Dutt: Abrar Alvi’s Journey.
However, Guru Dutt Films' next project -- Shikar -- directed by Atmaram in 1968, again featuring Dharmendra in the lead role, was a box office hit. Poetic justice yet again?
In a world which is not bereft of coincidences and divine interventions, this seems like an unexplained connection between two talented artists who could never work together.