Was Anand really offered to Dharmendra?

The legendary Dharmendra was filmmaker Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s favourite actor. And Rajesh Khanna who was extremely possessive about his favourite directors didn’t like this partiality at all.  Hrishida  told me how irked “Kaka”(Khanna) would get when he  gave the  “wrong” answer  to the question, ‘Hrishida, who is your favourite actor?’

Hrishida told me, “Dharmendra was always my favourite. He starred in my all-time favourite  film from my repertoire Satyakam.”

I can’t recall Hrishida mentioning that Dharmendra was considered for Anand. It, therefore, came as a surprise to hear Dharmendra say that he was “upset” that Anand went to Rajesh Khanna after Hrishida had spoken to Dharmendra about it.

Maybe Hrishida did mention Anand to Dharmendra. Although he was not in the habit of offering the same role to several actors. For that, we must turn to the late Rituparno Ghosh who offered Bariwali simultaneously to Raakhee Gulzar and  Jaya Bachchan but finally cast  Kirron Kher when her husband Anupam Kher agreed to produce Bariwali.