Mahendra Sandhu

QAMYAB – THE FORGOTTEN GEMS OF BOLLYWOOD

Qamyab is our humble tribute to all those lesser-known actors, one hit wonders and junior artists who we see umpteen times but don’t know about; beyond their faces. These actors have been an integral part of Bollywood but didn’t get their due. This series is our sincere attempt to put a name to these faces, familiarize them to our readers and celebrate their achievements in life – however big or small. We believe that every artist contributes in his/her own way to the cinema’s success. Qamyab will explore the unknown lives of such actors and artists as we believe even these forgotten gems of Bollywood deserve their due recognition today.

Not all handsome actors become successful Bollywood heroes. Some like Prem Chopra, Ranjeet and Shakti Kapoor make a lucrative career in negative or character roles as well. However, our today’s forgotten gem, a handsome actor by any standard, was adamant that he would not switch to character roles and play only lead roles till the end. This actor is Mahendra Sandhu

Better known as Agent Vinod, this spy movie character became his alter ego. Today, we take you through the life journey of Bollywood’s own James Bond, who still lives with this tag even after retiring almost four decades ago

Mahendra Sandhu was born on 18 April, 1947 into a wealthy Sikh family in Punjab to Kartar Singh, who was a landlord and mother Preetam Kaur a homemaker. Mahendra was the youngest amongst the six siblings. Sandhu completed his school education in Patiala. He loved acting since childhood and considered Dharmendra his idol

During his college days, Mahendra was a regular in college plays and later, he went to Pune and joined the FTII. After completing his acting course there, Sandhu reached Mumbai to try his luck in Bollywood. His macho personality and resemblance to Dharmendra ensured he did not have to struggle too much

The first film Mahendra Sandhu signed was F.C. Mehra’s Khoon Khoon (1973) with then newcomer Rekha but the film flopped badly at the box office. Sandhu had few more releases after Khoon Khoon. These were Sweekar (1973), Joshilaa (1973), Khoon Ki Keemat (1974), Goonj (1974) and Madhosh (1974). Unfortunately, none of these films fared well

Noted producer Tahir Hussain, father of Aamir Khan, wanted to make Madhosh with Dharmendra, Vinod Khanna and Hema Malini. But later, Reena Roy, Rakesh Roshan and Mahendra Sandhu came on board for this project and Sandhu’s younger version was played by the kid Aamir Khan

Despite being in the industry for three years, Mahendra Sandhu was still not getting the success and recognition he expected. At one time, he planned to quit acting and return to his village and do farming

It was in 1976 when Rajshri Productions’ head honcho Tarachand Barjatya decided to make a James Bond style actioner, a total departure from their usual family dramas. Barjatya wanted Vinod Khanna in the lead and hence, named the film Agent Vinod. But this role was destined for Sandhu and he came on board after Khanna refused it

This was not the first time Rajshri Productions had approached Mahendra Sandhu. He was offered two films earlier: Alibaba and Zorro but both these films didn’t happen for some reason. On reading the script of Agent Vinod, Sandhu knew it would be a huge success and signed the film pronto

In a unique strategy, Rajshri Productions released Agent Vinod (1977) at just one Mumbai theatre called Geeta Talkies (Worli). When any A grade movie of that time would release in at least twenty Mumbai theatres, Agent Vinod was playing only at Geeta in its first week. This move disappointed Mahendra Sandhu as the audience was giving good response to the movie but it had no theatres other than Geeta. However, in the second week, the movie was released in few more theatres and picked up through a strong word of mouth

Within a few weeks, Agent Vinod became a sleeper hit and Mahendra Sandhu lives with that tag even today. However, he believes that Rajshri couldn’t capitalize on their film’s success, which impacted his career and he decided not to work with them again. Another milestone achieved by Agent Vinod was that it was dubbed in English as Assignment Bombay (1978)

The new found success of Agent Vinod was expected to open doors for Sandhu in many more big projects but somehow, he couldn’t capitalize on its success at all. He waited at home for top filmmakers to approach him but no one did. He signed a few more movies which came his way but sadly, these turned out to be wrong choices and bombed badly at the ticket counters

In hindsight, Mahendra Sandhu agrees that his own ego ruined his career as he didn’t want to play second lead or negative roles. He was always averse to another actor hitting him in fight scenes. In fact, filmmakers started maintaining distance from him due to his somewhat arrogant behaviour