Dilip Dhawan
An excellent human being

Dilip was the son of late Krishan Dhawan, a well-known film actor and Munni Dhawan who also belonged to the film fraternity. My association with Dilip Dhawan started from the year 1982, when he produced a feature film Saath Saath which was directed by Raman Kumar. I was assistant director to Raman Kumar at that time.

When the question of casting for the film arose, Dilip, who was handsome and a FTII trained actor, immediately said, “I will concentrate

Dilip Dhawan, who was popularly known as ‘Buntu’, passed away all of a sudden due to a massive heart attack at his residence in Bandra on February 15, 2000. He was just 45 years old.

on production, let us cast somebody else.” That’s how Farouque Sheikh came in. Dilip was always a person with a vision. He saw to it that the film got completed in a month’s time and released immediately. After that he acted in a film, Ek Baar Kaho, as one of the leading heroes. And later did films like Priyadarshan’s Viraasat, David Dhawan’s Swarg and others.

Buntu rose to fame with his role as “Guru” in the serial Nukkad which was telecast on Doordarshan. His performance was so good that every member of the unit started treating him as a Guru. He had become a cult figure in the unit. If there were any fights amongst the actors or any kind of tension, the case used to go to him. He used to solve it in a second. His judgement was final. He created an aura whereever he went. His presence was felt. After Nukkad, Buntu really went through a bad phase for nearly three to four years, but he didn’t sit idle. He kept on reading and writing scripts, articles, concepts etc...

I always respected Buntu as an actor. His effortless performance and his screen presence, was one thing I used to adore. My Tere Mere Sapne was just about to begin - and I very hesitantly asked him whether he would perform in my serial. He immediately said, “Yes” - and things started moving for him. He became one of the busiest stars on television. Then came Raman Kumar’s Deewar, Ravi Rai’s Janam, Javed Sayeed’s Heena, my Mungeri Ke Bhai Naurangilal and many more. He had recently produced and directed a serial titled Tasveer Banata Hoon along with Suresh Suvarna an ace cameraman. He also wrote and directed a documentary on a special child, Rishi, who won the award at the Olympics.

He always used to get angry with me because he felt I was always shabbly dressed - and one fine morning he and his wife Renuka presented me beautiful kurta pyjamas and threatened me “if you are not dressed properly, I will not work with you”. This is how Buntu was! A person who cared for people, who respected people, who believed in humanity.

One could feel this, when he died. All his batch mates at the FTII and colleagues, Raman Kumar, David Dhawan, Satish Shah, Rameshwari, Aziz Mirza, Sanjay Chhel, Manoj Lalwani, Kundan Shah, Nadeem Khan, Avtar Gill, Rama Vij, his uncle Shammi Kapoor, his mama Bhappi Sonie, his cousins Boney Kapoor, Sanjay Kapoor, Neetu Kapoor, Manjul Sinha, Amit Behl, Lekh Tandon, Raza Murad, Rakesh Bedi, Kuldip Singh, his close friend Shery, Suresh Suvarna and many others were crying, feeling the pain of losing a great human being. But, let me tell you, Buntu will always remain with us, his typical smile can never be forgotten.

I would like to end this tribute with a poem written by him just two days before he passed away.

And at the end, I’d like to say,
A thank you and a silent prayer,
For those who know that special way -
That helps me grow with love and care!
Then in the end, when some day,
Your efforts special fruit do bear;
I shall stand with pride and say,
I am; I will be; because I dare!

God bless his soul; and bless his wife Renuka and Munni, his mother, with courage to bear this big loss.

A tribute by Ashok Pandit