It’s Dharmendra’s 89th birthday and he shares the special day with Sharmila Tagore, who also turned 80 today. On this special occasion Filmfare decided to comb through the archives and get you a special tidbit piece of film nostalgia. Sharmila Tagore and Dharmendra have worked together in memorable movies like Chupke Chupke (1975) and Satyakam (1969), Anupama (1966) and more, but they were going to feature in a far more special project sometime in the late 70s. Gulzar was making his version of Devdas and the film would feature Dharmendra in the lead role with Sharmila Tagore playing Paro and Hemant Malini in the role of Chandramukhi. But the film was shelved due to financial reasons.

The film’s mahurat shot was held at Mohan Studio in Mumbai and the film was announced with a publicity campaign in the newspapers, too. Not too long ago, Dharmendra had shared details of this project on twitter where he had shared a working still of himself as Devdas. Check out that post here:

“NEHIN tu tu MERI paro NEHIN “ it was my dream to play Devdas!!! pic.twitter.com/e0rwNT83Lt

— Dharmendra Deol (@aapkadharam) June 15, 2018

Not just that, it has been reported in the past that Devdas was one of Dharmendra’s dream roles. His mentor and idol Dilip Kumar has played the same role in Bimal Roy’s film in 1955 and in the past Dharmendra had revealed that he used to practice lines of dialogue from Dilip Kumar’s film while standing in front of a mirror. Dharmendra really wanted to reprise the role on the big screen, but that never happened.

Social media handles and conversations also shared the following image of Dharmendra, Hemant Malini and Gulzar from the set of the shelved Devdas movie. Check out the photo here:

It would have been an absolute experience to see Dharmendra and Sharmila Tagore in the roles of Devdas and Paro. Even more interesting would have been the sight of Hema Malini exercising her dancing skills in the role of Chandramukhi. It was unfortunate that this dream project never saw the light of day.