As a close as­so­ci­ate of the leg­endary wrestler Dara Singh, the au­thor shares in­side story of the life and times of the sportsper­son, Bol­ly­wood ac­tor, pro­ducer and Ra­jya Sabha mem­ber. The au­thor, a for­mer IAS of­fi­cer and bu­reau­crat pro­vides in­sights into his per­sonal life and how Dara Singh was a Pun­jabi at heart. Capt Narinder Singh hopes that the im­mense undi­luted con­tri­bu­tion of this il­lus­tri­ous son of soil of Pun­jab will be em­u­lated by bud­ding sportsper­son.

The name “Dara Singh” sent rip­ples in the body of his op­po­nents be­fore en­coun­ter­ing the ring. Hail­ing from the tiny vil­lage of Dharmu Chak in Am­rit­sar, this hum­ble and po­lite gen­tle­man rose to be­come an in­ter­na­tional freestyle wrestler from his hum­ble farm­ing back­ground and sub­se­quently to be a renowned movie ac­tor and pro­ducer in far off Mum­bai.

The Word DARA means a king in Per­sian. So the name Dara Singh im­plies a leo­nine ruler which suited the renowned wrestler-cum-cine-cum-tele­vi­sion artist as if it was tai­lor-made for him. Dara Singh was a dreaded name in the arena of freestyle wrestling in the world, for he rose to achieve the ti­tle of World Cham­pion af­ter floor­ing some of the most for­mi­da­ble wrestlers of his time. 

Dara Singh Rand­hawa was pop­u­larly known and fa­mous as Dara Singh. He had a her­culean fig­ure, stand­ing 6 feet 3 inches tall with mus­cles and built of a leg­endary hero. He was eas­ily recog­nis­able from a dis­tance and his per­son­al­ity made him an en­dear­ing per­son.

Farmer Surta Singh’s son Dara Singh was born on 19 No­vem­ber 1928 at Dharmu Chak vil­lage in the Baba Bakala Tehsil of dis­trict Am­rit­sar in the Pun­jab. As they say in chaste Pun­jabi, this part of the earth and its en­vi­ron­ment is blessed with pro­duc­ing strong and sturdy in­di­vid­u­als. Tiger Jogin­der Singh and Dara Singh Dulchipur be­longed to Am­rit­sar. Kar­tar Singh an IPS of­fi­cer and world vet­eran greco-ro­man heavy­weight cham­pion for the last 12 years, also hails from Am­rit­sar. It may be men­tioned that his name­sake Dara Singh Dulchipur, now in Tarn Taran dis­trict, also stood tall at 6 feet 6 inches. He too earned a name as a wrestler but could not oc­cupy the same po­si­tion and sta­tus as Dara Singh Rand­hawa.

While Dara was a teenager, he left for Sin­ga­pore to stay with his un­cle. This is the place where he watched and ob­served mar­tial arts of freestyle wrestling and pas­sion­ately dreamt of be­com­ing a strong grap­pler.

Once, in a rather solemn and dig­ni­fied tone Dara Singh told me that he never wanted to get his hair clipped, but had to bow to the stern de­mands of his pro­fes­sion. Hav­ing cut his hair, he re­mained de­prived of any ho­n­our by a re­li­gious body like the SGPC. His fa­ther Surta Singh sup­ported a flow­ing beard and tied the tur­ban. Dara Singh rit­u­ally tied the tur­ban at every op­por­tu­nity pos­si­ble, in deep rev­er­ence to his faith.

In his wrestling span, Dara Singh sup­ported and as­sisted his com­pa­tri­ots like Kan­war­jit Singh Sandhu (Rus­tam-e-Pun­jab) and Mo­hin­der Piddi. He also boosted his nephew Baljit into wrestling. How­ever he only adopted Kar­tar Singh -an Ar­juna award awardee as his dis­ci­ple, who had of­fered the tra­di­tional Pa­gri (tur­ban of re­spect and al­le­giance to the teacher) and had sought his bless­ings. In the early eight­ies, he prac­ticed wrestling in Mum­bai un­der the tute­lage of Dara Singh.

Dara Singh’s sons, Am­rik Rand­hawa and Vindu Dara Singh did at­tempt to em­u­late their il­lus­tri­ous fa­ther and tried their hand at wrestling but quickly aban­doned it. They are well set­tled and live in Mum­bai. 

For one year Jogin­der Singh Sheron coached him, but he soon learnt all that he could teach. To his good luck Dara Singh came across the strong and fa­mous wrestler of that era Har­nam Singh, who had even de­feated Achhar Singh, con­sid­ered as a man-moun­tain. Ul­ti­mately, Dara Singh adopted Har­nam Singh as his guide, men­tor and pre­cep­tor whom he ad­mired a lot. He even val­ued his Gu­ru’s (teacher’s) son Ajit Singh in high es­teem who was crowned as Hind-ki-Shaan (Pride of In­dia) by for­mer In­dian Prime Min­is­ter Jawa­har­lal Nehru.

In his face-to-face talk he told me that this game of freestyle wrestling was un­known till 1951. At 19, he fought In­dian style in Akha­ras (rural rings for wrestling prac­tice and matches) and made his de­but in freestyle wrestling in 1949. Dur­ing the full span of his ca­reer, he fought more than 365 bouts and re­mained un­de­feated.

He was the sole cham­pion who re­mained the king of freestyle wrestling for more than a quar­ter of a cen­tury. Dara Singh fought against King Kong, Bill Robin­son, Bill Verna, George Gor­di­enko, Caswell Matin, Al Rick Dosan, So­hain Baba and many oth­ers and won nu­mer­ous lau­rels. He had the first taste of World cham­pi­onship in Lon­don on 11 De­cem­ber, 1957.

“In a solemn and dig­ni­fied tone Dara Singh told me that he that he never wanted to get his hair clipped, but had to bow to the stern de­mands of his pro­fes­sion.   ”

Talk­ing to me, he rec­ol­lected that his fight against George Gor­dain in 1959 was per­haps the tough­est fight of his ca­reer. With a high-volt­age smile, Dara nar­rated that im­me­di­ately af­ter his vic­tory he was car­ried by the ju­bi­lant and hi­lar­i­ous In­dian crowd, which took out a long pro­ces­sion, played mu­sic and per­formed the Bhangra dance. That was the day of his achieve­ment and he re­solved to keep the na­tional flag aloft and has never looked back. Dara Singh again won the World Cham­pi­onship in 1968 and con­tin­ued to hold this sig­nal ho­n­our till 1983, when he fi­nally bade good­bye to his most beloved game be­fore a mam­moth crowd in Delhi.

Fol­low­ing the foot­steps of his Guru -teacher and men­tor -Har­nam Singh, he was the sec­ond such per­son to ap­ply the tac­tic of dead­lock. Some time while fight­ing in Am­rit­sar in 1970-71, he ap­plied dead­lock on Flash-Gor­don (masked). Within sec­onds, Flash Gar­den was found help­lessly bound and ly­ing on the mat, moan­ing and wrig­gling like a fish at the end of a hook.

“Dur­ing the full span of his ca­reer, Dara Singh fought more than 365 bouts and re­mained un­de­feated.  ”

Once, while talk­ing to him I could not re­sist ask­ing him about his food habits and ex­er­cise which com­prised 2 chick­ens, 3-4 kilo­grams of milk, about 250 grams of pure desi ghee and al­monds every day. He told me that he scrupu­lously avoided any spicy and chilly food. Life was all ex­er­cise, food and rest.

He had al­ways de­fied that bouts were rigged and one could ob­serve a de­ri­sive sneer on his face while talk­ing about this. If money was supreme how could he be­come a world Cham­pion as he had noth­ing to of­fer. If com­pro­mise and bar­gains had ex­isted, how could he throw out King-Kong out of the ring who was al­most dou­ble his weight, con­fided the wrestler to me.

When Dara Singh was at the peak of his wrestling ca­reer in 1961, he was lured by film pro­ducer Devi Sharma to join the film in­dus­try. Dara Singh could hardly be­lieve it. He knew his likes and dis­likes like the palm of his hand. In his wrestling ca­reer, he had to­tally ab­stained from watch­ing a movie and in­dulging in any kind of lax­ity or loose­ness.

Ini­tially hes­i­tant, he made a  pleas­ant di­ver­sion into the glam­orous world of films and bagged one stel­lar role af­ter an­other and had a large num­ber of movies to his credit.  With his sig­nif­i­cant role in the most pop­u­lar TV se­r­ial of our time -the Ra­mayana as the char­ac­ter “Hanu­man”, earned him a re­spect­ful place in the hearts and minds of thou­sands of peo­ple. His role in this T.V. se­r­ial made a big dent and niche in the minds of view­ers and peo­ple vir­tu­ally took him as Hanu­man re­viv­ing the his­tory. He soon be­came a house­hold name-a-name syn­ony­mous with strength, vigor, agility and be­ing hu­mane.

In­ter­est­ingly in the ini­tial stage of his film ca­reer, fe­male artists were shy and scared of hav­ing any role with him, not due to his male chau­vin­ism, but due to his usual strong hold and grip. Ul­ti­mately he soft­ened it to the ex­tent that he could break a rose from the stem with­out scat­ter­ing the petals.

“World­wide, two names come to my mind when we speak about Dara Singh’s for­ays into sports and movies. Like Dara Singh, these two -Bruce Lee and Arnold Schwarzeneg­ger have had a glo­ri­ous track record in both sports and movies.  ”

Dara Singh acted in more than a 115 movies. He played lead roles mainly in King Kong, Her­cules, Sam­son, Rus­tam-e-Rome, Rus­tam-e-Bagh­dad, Lootera, Tarzan, Jab We Met and many more. In Karma he vir­tu­ally con­quered the hearts of cine­go­ers by his pa­tri­otic ac­tion in not al­low­ing the tri­color to be hit with bul­lets. He also acted with Bol­ly­wood stal­warts like Prithvi­raj Kapoor.

Mum­taz acted with Dara Singh in 13 films. Dara Singh’s younger brother, Sar­dara Singh, also a strong wrestler, mar­ried Mum­taz’s younger sis­ter.

He grad­u­ally com­mit­ted him­self fully to the film in­dus­try.  Years ago, he mooted the pro­posal for a mod­ern film stu­dio to the Chandi­garh ad­min­is­tra­tion. Dara Singh and this writer made se­ri­ous at­tempts to find a place for Filmis­tan in Pun­jab and Chandi­garh. Dara Stu­dios in Mo­hali stands tes­ti­mony to his com­mit­ment to the de­vel­op­ment of the film in­dus­try. 

Dara Singh was a pil­lar of strength, en­ergy and power. He was a fe­ro­cious killer in the ring, but a hum­ble gen­tle­man out­side it. Once I pre­vailed upon him to be the chief guest of Sut­lej Pub­lic School, Panchkula, which he gladly ac­cepted. On an­other oc­ca­sion, a so­ci­ety in­tended to or­ga­nize a func­tion in the revered mem­ory of Dr. M.S. Rand­hawa a leg­endary art pro­moter in Lud­hi­ana in 1989-90. They ap­proached me to find out if Dara Singh would agree to be the chief guest. Dara Singh can­celled his film shoot and agreed to come and paid his own fare too.

Nos­tal­gi­cally he rem­i­nisced that the younger gen­er­a­tion was whim­si­cally in­clined to­wards the film in­dus­try when they could hardly get a place in Bol­ly­wood, spoil­ing the ca­reers of many young boys and girls.

To give a boost to Pun­jabi cul­ture along with Gur­das Mann, Diljit Kaur, Rama Vij, Vindu and his wife Farah and other re­puted artists from Bom­bay he graced the func­tion Jhan­jaran de Bol or­ga­nized by the Pun­jab gov­ern­ment in No­vem­ber 1997, which was spear­headed by me in my ca­pac­ity as Di­rec­tor Cul­tural Af­fairs.

With the pas­sage of time Dara Singh got en­grossed in film mak­ing and un­der his ban­ner of Dara Pro­duc­tions, he pro­duced Dhana Bha­gat, Kisan Aur Bhag­wan, Rus­tam (The Cham­pion) and many more films.

World­wide, two names come to my mind when we speak about Dara Singh’s for­ays into sports and movies. Like Dara Singh, these two -Bruce Lee and Arnold Schwarzeneg­ger have had a glo­ri­ous track record in both sports and movies. Known for his quick re­flexes, fly­ing kicks and som­er­saults, Bruce Lee dom­i­nated the world of Karate and that brought him to Hol­ly­wood start­ing with the movie En­ter the Dragon.  Arnold Schwarzeneg­ger started his life as a body builder in Aus­tria and upon mi­gra­tion to the United States, joined Hol­ly­wood and played ex­em­plary roles as an ac­tion ac­tor. Arnold Schwarzeneg­ger rose to be­come the Gov­er­nor of Cal­i­for­nia and Dara Singh was nom­i­nated to Ra­jya Sabha -the up­per house of the In­dian par­lia­ment from 2003 to 2009.

Dara Singh ex­celled in strength, prowess, agility and swift­ness. Men like Dara Singh are hardly born in a cen­tury. Tiger Ajit Singh hail­ing from Lud­hi­ana and set­tled in Canada is a fe­ro­cious wrestler whose name was a ter­ror in Japan. It was a priv­i­lege to co-host Tiger Ajit Singh and Dara Singh at my res­i­dence.  Sig­nif­i­cantly, tur­baned Jin­der Ma­hal in the WWE ring re­minds of the glo­ri­ous pe­riod of Dara Singh.

Life’s ironies can be hard-hit­ting. The wrestler who could pounce upon his op­po­nents like a tiger had to strug­gle for the last two years of his life in a hos­pi­tal in Mum­bai as his kid­neys failed him. His life­time friend Dhar­men­dra and hun­dreds of fans prayed for his re­cov­ery, but death snatched him from his ad­mir­ers and rel­a­tives on 12 July 2012.

In true tra­di­tion, his ashes were sub­merged at Ki­rat­pur Sahib in the pres­ence of many of his ad­mir­ers and rel­a­tives in­clud­ing Kan­war Sandhu, Kar­tar Singh Pe­hal­wan and me. His fans and ad­mir­ers were weep­ing and rec­ol­lect­ing his grand con­tri­bu­tion.

To ho­n­our him and to serve as an in­spi­ra­tion for the next gen­er­a­tion, his fam­ily and friends placed a gold colour statue in the cen­tre of a round­about op­po­site the Dara Stu­dios in Chandi­garh, dur­ing his ninety-year birth an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions in No­vem­ber 2018.

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Dara Singh was a wrestler, artist and a politi­cian. We do not know when we will get an­other Dara Singh. It would be in fit­ness of things for the Sikh com­mu­nity to recog­nise his work as well as for In­dia to posthu­mously be­stow the Padma Shri award on this ex­em­plary sportsper­son, ac­tor and a gen­tle­man par ex­cel­lence.