The morning didn’t feel like a birthday at all. It was too quiet, too heavy, like the city woke up remembering something before it remembered the date. I kept thinking about how odd it is that grief changes the temperature of a place. December eighth was Dharmendra’s ninetieth, but nothing about the day carried that celebratory buzz. It felt more like the air had stopped mid step.
I saw Sunny Deol’s post before I even finished my first cup of tea. Just that old holiday video, the two of them in some easy moment you can’t stage even if you try. His caption was short. Almost clipped. Papa is always with me. Miss you. You can tell when a guy isn’t performing for the internet but sort of talking to himself and accidentally letting everyone else hear. It had that energy. A son saying something he’s said in his head a hundred times and now finally giving it a place to land outside his chest.
Then Esha wrote hers, and her words they had this ache that came through even without trying. Painfully misses, she said. Funny how one word can tilt a whole sentence. She talked about his hugs, his voice, the way he guided her, and it didn’t sound like a public tribute, more like something she might have written in a journal and then, at the last second, decided to share. I kept rereading the line about always being together, heaven or earth. It felt like she wasn’t ready to let go of the idea of proximity. Most people aren’t, really.
Karan added his piece too. There will never be anyone like you, he wrote. It was a younger man’s grief. Slightly unsure, slightly formal, but sincere in that way people get when they’re facing the first big loss that shapes them.
But the one that lingered in the room long after I closed the app was Hema Malini’s post. She called him my dear heart, which stopped me because it’s such a vulnerable phrase and we rarely hear it anymore. She mentioned gathering pieces of herself. That line didn’t feel polished. It felt like someone speaking while still mid emotion, not after they’ve had time to tidy it up. Her photos weren’t arranged to make a point. They looked like ones you find inside an old envelope, edges soft, moments half remembered.
Meanwhile, at the Deol farmhouse, fans trickled in through the open gates. No big crowds. Just people who needed to show up. Some held flowers, some nothing at all. Just memories. Sunny and Bobby met them quietly. No big gestures. A few handshakes, nods, little moments that probably mattered more than anything they might have rehearsed. I think it helped ease some of that tension leftover from the private funeral. People wanted to feel included in the goodbye. They finally were.
The industry mostly stayed in the background, which honestly felt right. A few posts here and there, old stories resurfacing, but even those had a gentler tone. Like everyone collectively understood that this was not a day for performance.
At one point in the afternoon I caught myself thinking about how strange it is that someone like Dharmendra, who lived so loudly on screen, leaves behind a silence like this. A big one. Not empty, just wide. The kind that fills rooms in a way noise never could.
The rest of the day moved without much direction. Messages kept appearing online, but nothing felt like a headline. More like a stream of people placing small emotional offerings wherever they could. No structure to it. Just human beings trying to figure out how to remember someone who meant a different thing to each of them.
By evening the lights at the farmhouse softened. People drifted away. The family went inside. There was no sense of closure or whatever we pretend that word means. Just a little warmth in the middle of the grief. Sunny carrying his father the way sons do when they finally understand the shape of the man they lost. Esha holding onto the parts of him that shaped her gentleness. Hema carrying decades in one quiet post that probably cost her more energy than she let on.
Birthdays come with cake and candles. This one came with memory, which is heavier but also truer.
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Sana has been covering film, fame, and everything in between for over a decade. From red carpets to rehab rumors, she brings nuance, wit, and an insider’s edge to every story. When she’s not reporting, she’s probably watching Koffee With Karan reruns or doom-scrolling celebrity IG feeds.
