During the shooting of the Bollywood film Apne, Pakistani actor Javed Sheikh found himself struggling with the script — not because of the lines, but because they were written in Roman Urdu. A Vijayta Films production, the movie had all the Deols acting together for the very first time. Playing a friend of the lead character, Baldev Singh Chaudhary, who had just returned from the US, Sheikh requested the script be given to him written in Urdu instead and told the production assistant to take his time with it.
To his surprise, the Urdu script arrived within minutes. Curious, he asked how it was done so quickly, only to learn that the actor playing Baldev Singh Chaudhary also needed his dialogue in Urdu because he couldn’t read Hindi.
That actor was none other than Dharamendra — the legendary He-Man of Bollywood, producer of the film, and, much like Sheikh, completely at ease with the Urdu language.
Dharamendra would have turned 90 today (December 8). The legendary actor-producer passed away on November 24 and, despite the ban on showing Indian content on TV,
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