by Dilip Kumar
I HAVE ACTUALLY LOST COUNT OF THE NUMBER OF TIMES I HAVE been asked this question not only by the media but also by friends who have walked with me in my long journey. The question is whether there is anything at all that I regret and wish to obliterate from the canvas of my life. I have refrained from answering partly because I believe that, as Yousuf Khan, I am entitled to my privacy and the right to keep certain events in my life away from prying intruders.
As all those who know me well will endorse, I do not revel in talking about my private life. I have often been in the company of men at small intimate social gatherings where they came out with stories of their ‘conquests’ and the women they have known with great flourish and with an indecent sense of pride. I have squirmed at such exposure and tried to put a stop to it.
Well, the one episode in my life that I would like to forget and which we, Saira and I, have indeed pushed into eternal oblivion is a grave mistake I made under pressure of getting involved with a lady named Asma Rehman whom I had met at a cricket match in Hyderabad (Andhra Pradesh) where she then lived with her husband. She was a mother of three when she was introduced to me as a fan and she seemed like umpteen other admirers, who were introduced to me by my sisters, Fauzia and Saeeda, at public places. She was a friend of my sisters.
My sisters often received requests from ladies to meet me and, maybe, have a light conversation with me. I was used to such introductions and I always took extra pains to be cordial and warm with the men my brothers invited home or the young ladies my sisters brought along.
In this case, however, I was completely unaware of a connivance that was being mischievously perpetuated and a situation being cleverly created by vested interests to draw a commitment from me. Not once, but many times I was surprised by the lady and her husband who popped up from nowhere even when I was in different places out of Bombay to come up to me and greet me and linger on and on. Strangely, they were aware of my travel plans and my itinerary!
In 1982, when the news spread that I had married Asma and Saira read the sensational ‘revelation’ in a tabloid, it was very painful for me to console her as she trusted me and loved me unconditionally. I was not at home when Saira read the news and, truth be told, neither she nor her mother (Naseem Aapa) believed what they read because of their implicit faith in me and the sincere commitment I had given at the time of my nikah with Saira that there was no question of a second marriage and there should be no talk of it.
I can never forget or forgive myself for the hurt I caused to Saira and the shattering of the unshakeable faith she had in me. It needs to be said that even in that situation when a self-respecting woman cannot but hate the man who has humiliated her, my wife Saira stood by me when I admitted the grave mistake and asked her to give me some time to undo the wrong through proper legal processes and restore the sanctity of our marriage of sixteen years. I requested Saira to give me some time to sort it all out.
Saira, despite the hurt caused to her pride and to her intense faith in me, stood solidly by me on the advice of Naseem Aapa and her brother Sultan Ahmed. I immediately reinforced the faith Aapaji and Sultan had reposed in my promise to Saira by signing a letter of commitment long before the legal processes of divorce were initiated and completed vis-à-vis Asma. Some of my close friends signed as witnesses. I must mention the names of Rajni Patel, his wife Bakul Patel, Sharad Pawar and Mama Kapadia as my well-wishers who helped me tide over the crisis with their sound advice and guidance to restore the stability of our marriage and give my wife Saira the emotional and moral support she needed then. From the film fraternity, it was Shuklaji (Pran’s wife) and Prakashji (B. R. Chopra’s wife) who took a bold stand and unflinchingly stood by Saira because they genuinely loved her and were protective about her. They expressed their displeasure and ticked me off as real bhabhis (one’s brothers’ wives) should and told me either I rectify the situation or lose them forever as people I consider my own.
I would not like to devote more space to the forgotten episode and conclude by saying without the slightest hesitation that, as a human being, I was not infallible and I became a victim of a situation that was set to precipitate a deep crisis in my marriage with Saira. I strongly believe that there is a divine purpose even in the untoward happenings in one’s life. The whole episode strengthened our closeness and our emotional dependence on each other.
During the episode it was also wrongly represented that Saira could not bear a child. The truth is that Saira had borne a child, a boy (as we came to know later), in 1972. We lost the baby in the eighth month of pregnancy when Saira developed high blood pressure and the obstetricians attending on her could not perform the surgery in time to save the full-grown foetus, which had been strangulated by the umbilical cord. We took the loss in our stride as the will of God.
The curious question that never goes unasked is whether I am unhappy not having my own children. Well, it would have been great if we had our own kids. But it is not a shortcoming for us. Allah has blessed us with so many lovely children in our family. All our youthful days were spent with the children of my sisters and brothers who came visiting us and stayed with us when they had school and college holidays. We loved their presence in the house, the resonance of their laughter and the girls’ giggles as we played the games they invited us to play with them. They were enough to make us feel like parents. As infants they were brought to me and it was mandatory for the babies to sleep soundly on my large chest as if they were on a foam mattress. As they grew up, they came home to play interesting games with ‘Mamu’ as all of them addressed me.
Years ago, my elder brother Noor Sahab’s sons Amjad and Javed were in Bombay for a long training programme at a corporate office and I made it mandatory for them to visit me every day at 8 p.m. come what may. The young fellows had come from Nasik and I felt I should keep them away from possible bad company. It made good reason for me and Saira to gather all the other young nephews and nieces who could make it for some fun in the house ending with an invigorating game of badminton in the garden.
It is Saira who always went all out to get the family together and still goes all out to be the grandaunt to the grandchildren in the family. It is wonderful to love and be loved by them and be there solidly when they need us and vice versa. Today, at times, both of us feel their absence from our lives since practically all my nephews and nieces are busy with their own lives or their families. Though we meet less often, I enjoy every moment I spend with them when they visit me. Perhaps if we had our own sons or daughters, they too would have gone to places far away to pursue their dreams and we would have got to see them once or twice a year!
The truth is that I became a parent to my brothers and sisters when I was in my late twenties. It gives me both pleasure and pain to narrate about my brothers and sisters. I have contemplated over this subject, asking myself whether I should write at all about my six sisters and five brothers who mean everything to me because I am a Pathan who zealously takes pride in and guards his family, especially the women, from public exposure.
I am talking about them largely because the story of my life will not be complete if I don’t devote space to them who are the world to me and for whom I had dreams that I did not even remotely have for myself.
We grew up amidst abundant love and emotional security. The parental grooming and discipline we received lacked in no way. It was fated perhaps that I would become more of a parent than a brother to my younger siblings at an age when most young men are envisaging the goals they wish to achieve. Circumstances had propelled me to forget about pursuing a university education and attaining the OBE my father saw in his dreams for me. True, he had no regrets because he lived to see my success in the profession Allah had ordained for me. I never found out but I think he was happy and secure in the thought that I had achieved a social and economic status that gave me the capacity to provide the best facilities for my younger sisters and brothers to make a mark in their own chosen fields.
Indeed, the fi
rst goal I set out to achieve when I had attained my own target of securing myself in my profession and gaining a reputation for my work by dint of sheer hard work and patience was to give my brothers and sisters the best education in the fields they chose, be it in India or abroad. There was no doubt that each of them had his or her individual intellectual strengths and flair and they had the potential to become achievers. What they needed, I felt, was motivation and facilities.
I left no stone unturned to give each of them the impetus to scale the heights of success that I visualized in my dreams for them. I wished to see them surpass me in fame and fortune and attain enviable stations in life that well-educated professionals do. I hoped that one day Dilip Kumar would be known as their brother and not the other way round. Amidst all the hard toil that I was putting into my work, I found time to ensure that they interacted with me and expressed their desires.
The pleasure of narrating this piece is that it gave me great happiness that I was able to fulfil their wishes and send them out to places where they wanted to pursue their interests. The pain of writing this piece arises from the disillusionment. My dreams remained just dreams. Today, I cannot but wonder what went wrong and where the lacuna was when all of us came from the same stock.
Was it Destiny that laid out the road for whatever I went on to achieve with only a college education and limited resources and no training in the profession I found myself in? Yes, it was Destiny and Allah’s will, but it was also loads of painstaking work and relentless pursuit of my goal, which has always been to deliver work that made the producers of my films feel proud and commercially rewarded. Did my brothers and sisters lack that drive and propensity for hard work to fulfil the hopes I had pinned on them? Did I expect too much in my love for them and my brotherly pride about their native intelligence and talents? These are questions that I have asked myself time and again.
There was nothing I could do to change anything in my eldest sister Sakina Aapa’s circumstances; nor could I change the way my elder brother Noor Sahab wished to conduct his life. So the mission I took up was to weave dreams about the younger ones who grew up in front of my eyes.
My sister Taj was always the homemaker, a first-class cook who could serve a splendid meal at short notice all by herself. I think she was domesticated like Amma, cool and collected and ever willing to feed us with goodies. Akhtar was the academically bright one from her school days and her flair for language studies and poetry made her the second intellectual in the family after Ayub Sahab. She was the one who had the capacity to become either a professor or a littérateur. She desired to study abroad and I was more than glad to give her the opportunity and fulfil her wish. When she returned from the USA, I was shooting for Mughal-e-Azam (released in 1960) and K. Asif (the director of the film) was a frequent visitor at our house. I was not aware that love was blossoming between Akhtar and Asif and that they had decided to marry without my consent, knowing full well that I would not approve of my most accomplished sister marrying a twice-married man who was much older and had contrasting views and thoughts and a totally different lifestyle. Akhtar had a weakness for Urdu poetry and Asif had evidently drawn her to him with his fluency and knowledge of the Urdu language. Akhtar disappointed and disillusioned me and I distanced myself from her and Asif for some years (as mentioned in an earlier chapter).
Saeeda resembled Amma and it was wonderful to look at her petite figure move around the house treading softly like Amma used to. She not only acquired Amma’s sweet, delicate looks but also her gentle way of speaking to people. She too chose to marry and not opt for a career. Farida was always the tomboy of the family who wanted to be economically independent and create a niche for herself in journalism. I nicknamed her ‘sunshine’ because she was always full of brightness and buzzing around like a bee in the house. She took up a job as a journalist in The Times of India Group’s Femina magazine. I remember Farida being forever late to leave for her job and requesting me to spare the car to take all the way from Bandra to Bori Bunder (about 16 km), where her office was located. She too could have made a mark in her field.
Fauzia married a young man she met and settled down after her graduation. Her husband, Dilip Surve, had a good job in one of the establishments of the Mahindra Group.
My younger brothers Ahsan and Aslam were sent to Bombay Scottish School and later they preferred to study at St Xavier’s College, Bombay. Both wanted to go for higher education to the US. It was with great expectations that I had sent Ahsan and Aslam abroad for their advanced studies. I don’t remember ever expressing my dismay when they did not live up to my hopes. Among the many truths I have learned from the ups and downs of life is that it is all right to be ambitious and desirous of success but it is not in everybody’s destiny to achieve what he or she desires to achieve.
Nasir was two years younger to me. He was always the centre of feminine attention because of his handsome looks and his gallant ways. Around Pali Mala where we lived, he was the heartthrob of young women who stole surreptitious looks at him when he walked out of our house looking elegant and dapper in his well-ironed trousers and long-sleeved shirts bought from the best clothiers. It was no wonder that he became a popular actor when he debuted with Filmistan’s Mazdoor in 1945. He starred in some interesting films teaming him with talented actresses like Nargis, Meena Kumari and Nutan. He was attracted to Begum Para, also an actress. She was a woman of fine manners and taste coming from a good family background and he married her at a time when a strange deficiency in his body was robbing him of his hair on his scalp and skin. He then wanted to produce a film and act in it. Since financiers were ready to back me I told him I would produce a film that would give him a platform to bounce back and receive the acclaim he deserved as a sensitive actor. I produced Gunga Jumna (released in 1961) and he received overwhelming praise for his work, which made me feel very proud. The illness, however, could not be contained by the medicines and medical attention we got for him then. Willy-nilly he had to close shop.
I am often asked how I came to terms with the passing away of my brothers Ayub Sahab, Noor Sahab and Nasir and my sisters Sakina Aapa and Taj. I can only say each death was painful and it took all the courage I possessed to believe their non-existence in my life.
I can still recall the phone call from Abrar Alvi (a well-known writer and director) very early one morning in 1972, which was picked up by Naqi Ahmed, Saira’s relative staying with us. The call was for me and it conveyed the bad news that Nasir had passed away in Dalhousie (now in Himachal Pradesh) where he was scouting for locations for Zid, the film he was producing. Zid had Saira and Sanjay Khan in the lead roles and its shooting was slightly delayed because Saira had been ordered bed rest by her doctors as she was being taken off the cortisone drugs that necessarily had to be tapered in their dosage under strict medical supervision. Meanwhile, Nasir had thought of using the time at his disposal to search for picturesque locations in Punjab for the film.
I was numb with shock and devastated. I had to keep the news away from Saira as the doctors treating her had told us it would be dangerous to subject her to any kind of emotional distress as she had just recovered from ulcerative colitis and a relapse could be fatal. How could I manage to keep the news from her? Saira and Nasir shared a bond of mutual regard and admiration. He was the only member of my family who gave her the respect and love she deserved besides understanding the alienation she was subjected to by my sisters and by Ahsan. Nasir himself was not in the good books of Sakina Aapa because he had married an actress. When Nasir was unhappy he turned to Saira for solace.
It was imperative for me to pretend before Saira that nothing serious had happened and I had to tell her that Nasir was in hospital with a mild heart attack. Naseem Aapa knew about it and she assured me that she would take care of Saira while I was away to attend to the sad and painful formalities connected with Nasir’s funeral. I must confess it took all my capabilities to behave normally before Saira while my heart ached and my soul we
pt silently.
When I returned from the kabristan (burial ground) late in the evening, I found Saira waiting to know from me how Nasir was. She was insistent that I should take her to the hospital to meet him. It was difficult to maintain the façade and I broke down in front of her uncontrollably.
As adults, we have the wisdom to accept the stark reality of death but how did one tell Nasir’s children that their father would not be coming home ever again?
As I reflect on the absence of my brothers Noor Sahab, Ayub Sahab, Nasir and my sisters Sakina Aapa and Taj, I cannot but sorely miss some of the wonderful men who were with me in my journey, including Raj Kapoor, Ashok Kumar, S. Mukherjee Sahab, Mehboob Sahab, Nitinda (Nitin Bose), Bimalda (Bimal Roy), Tapanda (Tapan Sinha), B. R. Chopra Sahab, Dev Anand, Pran, Yash Chopra and producer Yash Johar. I miss them as much as I miss my own brothers who are no more.
When was that moment when I felt proud and had that lump in the throat, which made expression of thoughts difficult for a fleeting moment? I can pinpoint the occasion and moment when Lata Mangeshkar rendered the shraddhanjali (homage) to the martyrs of the 1962 India–China war on Republic Day (26 January) 1963 at a function in Delhi. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, who was present there, wept and so did all of us who had gathered at the venue.
With B. R. Chopra.
The night before, at the Ashoka Hotel, where Lata was staying, I had met her briefly and she was her shy, unassuming self. After I retired to my room in the hotel after a long day of meetings, I phoned Lata and asked her if she could sing one of my favourite devotional songs Allah tero naam* for me and she gladly obliged. I went to sleep with her peerless voice soothing my tired mind. Little did I know that Lata would outshine herself the next day with her soulful rendering of Ae mere watan ke logon …**