Bhagwan Dada

Bhagwan Dada ( birth name Bhagwan Aabaji Palav) was a famous actor, comedian, director and producer having started his career during silent era of films and continued for decades .
He was born in a Marathi hindu family at Amravati on 01.08.1913 .His father
who was a mill worker in bombay . Dada attended school for only 4/5 years and then joined his father as a worker but left it soon as he had great interest in films and acting .
He got his break with tiny roles in silent films with his first film being CRIMINAL and then he got totally involved with the studios and all aspects of film making .The word DADA got added to his name as he had great interest in wrestling.
He co-directed his first film Bahadur Kisan बहादुर किसान in 1938.
From 1938 to 1949, he directed a series of low-budget stunt and action films that were popular with the labour and working classes of those times and also acted in them usually playing the role of a naive simpleton with his self devised amusing type steps of dancing .
In the year 1942, while shooting a scene, he accidentally slapped the famous actress lalita Pawar with an extra force that left lalita with a disabled left eye despite long treatment. He always felt guilty for this accident . However he set up new standards in the then growing and changing film industry. It is he who started doing stunt actions without the help of a professional double .
Bhagwan dada had close relations with Raj kapoor and under his advice he borrowed money and made a social film Albela, अलबेला starring himself and Geeta Bali . The movie was a super hit and during those times did a business of Rs one crore . The songs of the film were also hit particularly “Shola jo bhadke” शोला जो भड़के which are remembered till date .
Bhagwan had become so rich that he bought and lived in a 25 roomed sea facing bungalow at Juhu and had 7 cars , one for each day of the week.
However, after film Albela , none of his films performed well and hence he had to leave direction and production. Moreover he lost lots of money on an unfinished film due to haughtiness of Kishore kumar and coupled with his own bad habit of gambling; this led him to sell off his bunglow and cars and had to shift to and live in a chawl ( a dignified slum) in bombay . He however continue to act in movies in small but very entertaining commedy roles to earn for his family of four sons and three daughters .
His noteworthy films were Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baje झनक झनक पायल बाजे (1955), Chori Chori चोरी चोरी (1956) and Gateway of India गेटवे आफ़ इंडिया ( 1957) . He produced 48 films and also acted in about 300 films in his long career.
Even during bad times , people’s love for him didn’t abate so much so that the annual procession of Shri Ganesh Chaturthi would always stop near his chawl , Dada would come down , bow to Ganeshji and then do his signature step dance and only then the procession would go ahead . His dance steps had inspired Amitabh, Govinda and Mithun Chakraborty and he taught his famous dance steps to Rishi kapoor .
Bhagwan Dada died of heart attack at his residence in Dadar, Mumbai on 4 February 2002 at an age of 88 . His death was condoled by Shri Atal Behari Vajpayeeji, the then PM besides others from film industry .
A Marathi movie Ekk Albela was released in the year 2016 which was a biopic ( जीवन चलचित्र) of Bhagwan Dada .
Cinema goers of yester years will remember him for a long time .

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Three stars