My first memory of Dara Singh is in the 70’s film Bhagat Dhanna Jatt, that I watched in Chandigarh’s Piccadily cinema hall with my parents on a night when we had nothing to do. My dad was not fastidious about films. If he wanted to see one, he found one playing near a theatre near him. Good, bad, or indifferent. The film was a simplistic tale about a simpleton who has unshakeable faith in his favourite deity and is rescued from tight corners by divine intervention. We came out of the film, with a smile and a chuckle at Dara Singh’s absolute lack of  acting talent  and the  heart-warming but decidedly irredeemable accent with which he delivered his dialogue. But then no one expected Dara Singh to play anyone but Dara Singh. My mother often told me about the black-and-white adventure thrillers he acted in with Helen, Nishi and Mumtaz. Then ofcourse, he was all over the place as Hanuman in Ramanand Sagar’s Ramayan. With the same mannerisms and an accent albeit with a long tail and red facial make-up.

Ofcourse, all the kids who grew up in the 70s have heard from their parents or otherwise, tales of Dara Singh’s pre Bollywood days as a wrestler where he marked every victory by lifting his opponent like a pillow above his head, circling the ring and then throwing him down. This was the pre WWF era when fights were real and wrestlers really fought for glory and had guts. It was totally understandable why someone would cast him in a film. Just as you can see why Arnold Schwarzenegger despite the absence of a single mobile facial muscle was picked to play the leading man in film after film in the 80s.

Dara Singh too was bigger than any part he was given to play. He came into films, riding on a legend. Of an unconquered wrestler and when he played the hero in all those B-Grade films, you did not have to suspend your disbelief to accept that he could do the impossible, take on anything and anyone, decimate all odds.  He was Rustam-E-Hind, he was Sikander in a mini skirt, he was the ultimate action hero before Hindi cinema had discovered eight pack abs and protein shakes. His most outstanding feature however was his naivety, his child like innocence that he retained till the end and that we glimpsed in a film as recent as Jab We Met. For someone who was essentially a fighter, he had no traces of anger or violence in his demeanour, face or body language. He was a genial soul through and through and trivia relates how during the shooting of Jab We Met, when he had to pull up Kareena Kapoor’s character for wearing skimpy clothes, he was reluctant to use a hindi word equivalent to naked! This in an age where cuss words are fashionable and confused with progressive cinema.

The other reason why we will always remember Dara Singh is because no matter what he did, he was always entertaining.  And he was and always will be synonymous with stories of raw physical strength, the kind we come across once in a life time. We could not stop watching him and even if we laughed at him, his bone deep niceness ensured that it was not in derision. Rest in peace, dear, bumbling gentle giant. You will be missed for your larger- than- life  heroism on and off the screen but most importantly, for your humanity.