‘Nandini theek keh rahi hai. Kab tak is tarah se aansu bahati rahogi? Tumhe toh beemar hone ka bhi haq nahi hai…’
He’s credited only as Arti’s lawyer in Khoon Bhari Maang (1988), but we remember him. Even when he’s credited as Raliya Ram’s son Labhaya Ram in the superb television show Buniyaad (1986), Mangal Dhillon gave his best to the role. Pallavi Joshi played the role of his wife in the show. Together they made a wonderful foil to Master Haveli Ram (played by Alok Nath) and his wife Lajoji. Buniyaad was one of the best shows on Partition to be aired on Indian Television when Doordarshan ruled. And to be able to stand his own with an ensemble cast is a feat not too many actors have achieved. In the next decade, he would continue to be a living-room presence as Sumer Rajvansh from the serial Junoon (1993).
Mangal Singh Dhillon was suffering from cancer, and has succumbed to the disease on Sunday after a long battle. Not too long back did he begin his inward journey and his YouTube channel about lessons from the holy book Guru Granth Saheb whose teachings and discourses reflect his learning.
His filmography shows him in really varied roles. Delve into the Doordarshan archives, and you will find Mangal Dhilon in and as Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, and when you watch Azaad Desh Ke Gulam (1990), you see him again, as Mangal Das, a small role in a film where law student Rekha discovers that her father is involved with everything that is illegal. Mangal Dhillon is the goon who throws wads of cash at an informer on the orders of Prem Chopra who is a corrupt minister. Two totally different roles but he played them with sincerity that reflects the 'work is worship' concept he speaks about on his YouTube channel.
He played advocates and cops with as much feeling as he did when he donned wigs and played bad guys in the movies.
In Naagmani (1991), Archana Pooran Singh’s naagin challenges Mangal Dhillon to ‘chala apni laathi’ and an enraged Mangal Dhillon tries to hit the naagin with his stick to no avail, the naagin just laughs.
Who can forget the weird game of Antakshari where Mangal Dhillon sits next to Danny Denzongpa who has threatened Deepak Parashar to sing on the pain of death. The singing with gun waving is perhaps the most sinister game in the movies. This is from a 1991 film Lakshmanrekha where Mangal Dhillon plays Jabbar Khan.
In the Anil Kapoor-Meenakshi Sheshadri movie Amba (1990), Mangal Dhillon plays the cruel Thakur Shamsher Singh. Never was reading a letter so ominous as when he reads the letter and laughs maniacally, saying, ‘Woh tumhe chhod gaya, lekin hum tumhe kabhi nahi chhodenge!’
In the Salman Khan Madhuri Dixit starrer Dil Tera Aashiq (1993), Dhillon’s great voice as a goon tells the bad guy, ‘Hawa mein goli chalane se koi faayda nahi.’ But you tend to forget the whole movie because of the hillarious fight scene in the end. Thanks to Kader Khan.
In the superhit film Dalaal (1993), with Mithun Chakraborty and Ayesha Jhulka, Mangal Dhillon played Jabbar Seth. Though this movie was an out and out Mithun Chakraborty film, Dhillon’s description of Ayesha Jhulka’s Rupali is indelible: Arre Dagdu, yeh main kya dekh rela baap…Sundarta ki devi, nritya ki bijli, adaa ki aandhi, jawani ka bhoochal! Apun tere ko salam karta hai…’
Whatever the film, whatever his role, Mangal Dhillon seems to have given every role his best. Maybe, today, these action-packed films of the ’80s and the ’90s seem overly dramatic and all the characters black or white. But for every Mithun Charaborty, Anil Kapoor and Salman Khan’s heroes, you did need really nasty villains and even worse their trigger-happy goons.