Seldom has a star shined so bright, not on account of his acting skills, but because of how he can contort his face (ESPECIALLY SHRINK HIS NOSE) inducing emotionally-driven dialogue delivery. I am talking, of course, about the great Dharmendra,  alias Dharam paaji.

Dharam-paaji started out in the mid-50s, I think, in black-and-white movies, and he looked handsome, that we have to admit. In fact, I would go so far to say that he was definitely better looking than Rajesh Khanna or Dev Anand in b&w movies, but my mom's generation would kill me with their handbags, sandals and M&B romance novels if they read this. He had that youthful look on him until about the time he married (owwwwww! that must have hurt!) Hema Malini. I have a theory about that marriage. Ever notice how Hema Malini says "Naheeeiiinnn-uh?" (the soft negation, not the negation screamed during a rape scene. The Hema Malini soft negation is ALWAYS administered with the sort of question mark at the end of it)? Most of the time, her dialogue delivery is very similar to Dharmendra's... so maybe he saw that they had something in common....

Of course, later on, Hema Malini said "Naheeeinnn-uh?, aisa nahin ho sakta-uh..." and moved on.

Anyway, then the fun part started in the mid- and late-80s, when Dharam paaji started playing the typical action-comedy roles he is now famous for, the stuff that people of my generation know him for. The basis for the action-comedy character comes from Sholay (1975), of course. So let's start with one of the funniest Paaji-isms ever to exist.
 

In Sholay, Dharam paaji plays Veeru, the langotiya-yaar of Jay (played by The Big B himself). At the end of the movie, both heroes suffer lots of physical damage (on top of the emotional damage that Dharam-paaji suffers when he finds out that he has to get it on with Hema Malini once they win against Gabbar!), and in an attempt to save everyone else's ass, Amitabh's character, Jay, jumps onto a bridge onto which someone just tossed a hand-grenade. Said grenade basically explodes in his face.

So, this is the situation: Amitabh's really taken one for the team, a grenade just exploded in his fucking FACE, and what does our Paaji say?

Dharmendar runs to his friend, and (shrink nose) says, "Jay, tu theeeeek to hai naaaa?" Nah, it didn't sound as funny as it would have if you heard the line, so someday I will put up sound files here.
The same movie had the other not-so-magaan yet magaan dialogue, "Basanti tu in kuuttttttooon ke saamne mat naach!"

                              One Armed Man: I've been looking for you for 8 months. Whenever I should have had a gun in my right hand, I thought of you. Now I find you in exactly the position that
                                 suits me. I had lots of time to learn to shoot with my left.
                                 [Tuco kills him with the gun he has hidden in the foam.]
                              Tuco: When you have to shoot, shoot, don't talk.
 

The same situation exists in a Dharmendra movie. Everything is copied down to the letter, except for the last line. Dharam paaji delivers it with his nose shrunken as usual. He shoots the other guy, and says "Eeeef you vaaant to shoot, shoot! Don't taaak!"

A blockbuster from the 70s was Yaadon Ki Baarat (1973). It wasn't just any blockbuster. It was THE blockbuster of the times, and as most blockbusters do, it had a star-studded cast. And, as I always say, WHAT STUDS!  The long-lost brothers reunite story played for one of the first few times in Bollywood (hey, as long as its under a hundred, its one of the first few times!) The three brothers were played by Dharmendra (Shankar, the eldest brother, turns to crime working under the evil don played by Ajit of course), Tariq (I think this dude, the youngest brother, turns into a rock-n-roll singer or something) and the GREEEEAAAAAATTTT MAGAAAAANNN YINSAAAAN Vijay Arora (he's just so young that he doesn't have to do very much except smile and sing a couple of songs in the movie). This movie was also featured Aamir Khan as a child actor (Obviously! If he was in his twenties at that time, then he might as well have starred in the Bollywood version of Beverley Hills 90210 in the 90s acting as a teenager, right) in his first ever screen appearance.

Anyway, towards the end of the movie, Ajit is running away from Dharmendra, and for some reason starts running on top of the railway track. The tracks suddenly have to change and his foot gets stuck between two rails. Everyone is watching as he is struggling to get out of the trap that Karma has set up for him (Karma, my ass). You hear the distant train whistle in the background, and Ajit, desperate to die a quick, less-painful death, looks at Dharam-paaji and beseeches him:
"Kill me, Shankar! Kill me!"

At this point let me pause and say that the first time I thought this scene was funny was in the early-90s. We were at my cousin's place, and another one of my cousins was getting ready to go back to Madurai, and there were four of us with her bags and suitcases in our hands, almost out the door but waiting since it was the climax and would be over in five minutes anyway.

Paaji shakes his head. "Naheein!" (\begin{nose shrink}) "Maaaaiiinnn tumheiin itni aasaani se nahin marne doonga!"
Nose shrinks a little more... "Aaaaj teri shaamat aayi hai!" (distant whistles getting closer)
"Woh dekh!" (points at the train)
(and now, nose starts to shrink to its minimum size, and you can feel him trying to get the next dialogue up out of the nether regions of his stomach)
"Kuuuuuuuuttttttttteeeeee!!!"

And then, all four cousins dropped the suitcases they were carrying and fell down on the floor guffawing laughter. It was the performance of a lifetime. And what does he get in the end?
All the other heroes are united with their girlfriends, and Dharam-paaji is reunited WITH HIS MOM!

(From countless movies: "Maa! Maa! Maa, tu thik to hai na?", "Maa, main teri maut ka badla loonga maa, in kutttttoooonn se looonga!")

And, of course, here's a link to the great line from The Burning Train

The very first time me and Raju noticed how Dharmendra's nose shrunk and to what extents, was when we were watching the burglar-thriller Jugnu (1973). In one of the scenes, Ashok (Jugnu's alter ego, who runs a very rich orphanage with the money that he makes off of stealing artsy-fartsy things and gold stuff and diamonds - you get the idea) is trying to justify "bad people" like Jugnu to a little kid (probably Master Bittu or Master Raju) ... and his nose shrinks to almost minimum volume, and he says: "Bete-uh, Jugnu bhi meri tarah ek majboooooor insaaan hai..."

In the 80s, he did these multi-starrer movies where he always had the same role - the bitter strongman who has lost someone he loved, and now only lives so that he can shrink his nose to minimum volume and talk about his past and drink and drink and drink and drink, but he ends up joining this group of rugged outlaws who want to bring justice to Earth by getting rid of a common enemy who probably raped his wife and killed his daughter or the other way round.

Trivia: In the movie Teesri Aankh, paaji played The Man of Steel in a song with the same name - SUPERMAN! This song was a favourite on Chitrahaar for a long, long time, and for a good fucking reason!!!! This movie and/or song had NOTHING to do with the N. T. R(amarao). song (and, though I doubt this claim, movie) where he plays Superman, with Jaya Prada as Lois Lane. In this song, he is supposed to be flying across the skies horizontally, while  Jaya Prada is standing on his back (Fucking OUCH!), holding onto his cape for support. Of course, the "flying" scene was made possible by making NTR lie face down on a glass plate, unfortunately when the camera goes under the glass plate, you can see NTR's ample belly squished under the combined his and Jaya Prada's combined weight, causing quite a bit of hysterical laughter (it was a gult movie, of course, you dumbass!)

Examples: Sone Pe Suhaaga (I remember this movie because it was the very very FIRST movie I saw once Bombay-ishtyle cable was installed at my home in '87 or '88. This was a time when suddenly everyone Lalloo-Panjoo could operate cable equipment, and there were suddenly two cable operators in my neighbourhood, one in my building (Veeru) and they were playing three movies a day, sometimes English movies, too... and sometimes they would play the video of Toko Fogo Nite and the latest (or maybe not latest) issue of Lehren. Does anyone remember this video-magazine about the film industry??? Probably not), Zalzala(a ripoff of Mackenna's Gold),Watan Ke Rakhwale, etc etc etc... I could go on, but you could just go look at his filmography and guess the story of the movie from there... if you want. Instead, you could do what I did over the 80s - watch every single fucking movie!!! It's fun, I will tell you that much.