Mumbai, Nov. 30 -- There are moments in life when the weight of a loss settles slowly, and Dharmendra's passing feels exactly like that - a quiet ache that deepens each time his name is spoken. The film industry stands unsettled, almost as if a familiar heartbeat has paused, closing an era that will never return.

I often think back to the days when I first arrived in Bombay as a young clapper boy, barely twenty or twenty-one. I was a nobody, and when you are a nobody, very few people treat you well. Dharmendra was already at the peak of his career, yet he was warm, polite, and treated me with respect even though I had done nothing to earn it.

That kindness stayed with me and shaped the way I saw him-both as an actor and as a human being...