When Dharmendra got emotional remembering partition days, "Tabhi bhedbhav ratti bhar ka nahi tha, hamare master ji jab ja rha the main ro pada..."

Dharmendra has lived a life full of cinema, applause, and larger-than-life moments, but every now and then he reaches back to the part of his childhood that never really left him. The memories of Partition still sit in a quiet corner of his heart, and whenever he talks about those days, his voice carries the weight of a boy who didn’t understand why the world suddenly changed.

He said that what hurts him most is the way harmony broke apart. In his childhood, friendships had nothing to do with religion. People lived together like one family. As he put it with honesty, “Mere kaafi dost the aur bhedbhaav ratti bhar ka nahi tha.”

For him, the word Partition doesn’t just mark a historical event. It opens an emotional wound. He recalled how the atmosphere shifted overnight. “Wahan ratti bhar nahi tha, tab Partition ki baat se ek larza sa ajeeb si haalat ho jaati hai.” That fear, that confusion, stayed with him.

The moment he remembers most clearly involves his beloved teacher, Master Ruknuddin. Dharmendra was just a young boy, studying in the eighth standard, trying to make sense of a world suddenly full of uncertainty. One day he saw his teacher walking through the bazaar, head lowered, preparing to leave town. The boy in him couldn’t understand why someone he admired had to go.

He described it in his own words:
“Hamare Ruknuddin master jo the jab ja rahe the bazaar se, unmein sar niche jhukaaye the. Toh main jaake lipta unse, ro pada. Main bola aap kyu ja rahe ho Master ji? Mujh jao bolen? Nahi bete, humko jana hi padega.”