Dilip Kumar: The Substance and the Shadow

by Dilip Kumar

  One experience I cannot forget on the sets of Ram Aur Shyam relates to the scene in which Pran Sahab (who plays my father in the film) flings the birthday cake and shouts at me. I was supposed to cry spontaneously when the cake is thrown away. When the time for the take came, somehow the tears would not come. I tried a few times and I could see that Sahab was getting impatient. I went up to him and told him quietly that when he wanted the tears in the final take he had to just come to me and whisper in my ears and I would bring out the tears. I requested him not to shout at me in front of the crew. He agreed and, as I had requested, he came and whispered in my ear that all was set. He called for action and try as I might there were no tears coming from me. He got really angry and yelled at me and told the entire gathering how I had requested him not to shout. There it started! A cascade of tears began to flow from eyes and the final take was at once canned. Whenever I watch the film with my grandchildren I tell them to observe that memorable scene carefully and it amuses them no end.

  I remember an evening when I set out with Dilip Sahab to the room where Aadmi was being edited. I had forgotten to inform my mother. When I returned, my mother was waiting for me with a stick. She whacked me but Dilip Sahab did not intervene. He let me have it because he felt my mother was right: I should have asked her permission before going out.

  During the shooting of Ram Aur Shyam, Dilip Sahab married Saira Banu. It was like a royal marriage and the reception planned by the producer Nagi Reddy Sahab and the entire unit at the Meenambakkam airport (in Madras) when Dilip Sahab came back with his beautiful bride to resume the shooting was also like a royal welcome. All the artistes and Nagi Reddy Sahab waited at the airport with large garlands to welcome them on the tarmac itself. Rose petals were strewn for them to walk on and I could not take my eyes off Saira’s beautiful face. For days after that mogras (jasmine) were regularly arranged in their room. I had heard that Saira was snooty, so I kept away from her, little knowing that it was really not true. She was reserved by nature and nothing more! Hardly did I know then that she and I were destined to become fast friends over a period of time.

  With Saira’s arrival, the atmosphere on the sets became more lively and festive as Dilip Sahab was in a really great mood most times and it was wonderful to see the camaraderie between Pran Sahab and Dilip Sahab.

  As time passed, I became a frequent visitor at Saira’s bungalow in Bombay. Dilip Sahab was like an elder brother and Saira became, more than a friend, a sister. As time passed, they taught me to respect and love my mother and father and perhaps unconsciously their feelings for elders in their family began rubbing off on me. Whether it was a marriage or a sad occasion in my house they have always been by my side. I think I was born lucky or else I would not have met them in this life.

  *If a big artiste cannot come, then the shoot is cancelled. For Farida too the shoot can be cancelled.

  DHARMENDRA

  SOMETIME IN 1952 WHEN I WAS IN THE second year of college I travelled to Bombay from the small town of Ludhiana, in Punjab, where we lived. I had no definite plans of becoming an actor back then but I definitely wanted to meet Dilip Kumar whose acting in Shaheed had touched a deep emotional chord within me. For some inexplicable reason I began to fancy that Dilip Kumar and I were siblings.

  The very next day after I reached Bombay I boldly went to his house in Bandra’s Pali Mala locality to meet him. I wasn’t stopped at the gate by anybody, and so I walked right into the house through the main door. There was a wooden staircase leading to a bedroom upstairs. Again, nobody stopped me, so I climbed up the stairs and stood at the entrance to one of the rooms. A fair, slim, handsome youth was asleep on a couch. He must have sensed someone’s presence and suddenly woke up somewhat startled. I stood still not knowing what to do. He sat up on the couch and stared at me, quite taken aback to see a total stranger standing gingerly at his bedroom door gazing admiringly at him. As for me, I couldn’t believe my eyes: It was Dilip Kumar, my idol, in front of me. He called out to a servant loudly. Now scared, I ran down the staircase and bolted out of the house looking behind to see if I was being followed.

  When I reached a cafeteria I went inside and asked for a cold lassi. As I sat in the cafeteria and thought back to what I had done, I realized how reckless I had been by intruding into the privacy of a star. So what if there was no watchman at the gate and no family member in the house to stop me? In the villages of Punjab the houses were always open to anybody who cared to drop in. There was a strong bond amongst the people with no barriers and you could just walk into a house without any formalities and be welcome at any time of the day or night. I was very happy to see my idol living just the way we lived in Punjab. But then, I had blundered by taking it for granted that I did not need an introduction. This was Bombay, the big city, and the house belonged to the star Dilip Kumar!

  Six years later, I returned to Bombay to take part in the United Producers’ and Filmfare Talent Contest. I was truly keen on becoming an actor now and I had convinced my father who had yielded to let me join films. I was declared a winner and, following that, I was asked to report at the Filmfare office for a photo shoot. I did not know how to apply make-up and the photographer was impressed by my face but he wanted a little touch up. A fair, slender girl came to me with a make-up kit and she began to touch up my face. The then editor of Filmfare, L. P. Rao, asked me softly whether I knew who the girl was. On saying I didn’t, he told me she was Farida, Dilip Sahab’s sister, who was working with Femina. I saw her leaving and I ran after her requesting her to [arrange to] meet Dilip Sahab. I told her I firmly believed that he was my brother too. She was amused but she agreed to call L. P. Rao if her brother agreed.

  The next day she called me over to their bungalow, 48 Pali Hill at 8.30 p.m. Time stood still for me when Dilip Sahab came out and welcomed me and gave me a chair to sit beside him on the lawns. He talked to me like an elder brother, full of love and concern and narrated how he became an actor and how difficult it was for him in the beginning to understand the demands of the profession since he came from a non-filmi background. I just listened to him spellbound as he spoke in English, Punjabi and Urdu in his soft, refined voice. I just could not believe that I was actually sitting next to him and he was talking to me. When I was leaving, he took me upstairs to his room and gave me a sweater from his cupboard because it was a bit chilly and he had noticed I was wearing just a thin cotton shirt. He hugged me and saw me off at the gate. I can still feel the warmth of that hug because it was genuine.

  I met him on many occasions thereafter and it was always he who came towards me and held my hand because I never took the liberty of going up to him as an equal. I remember when I was signed by Bimal Roy for Bandini [released in 1963] I was called to Mehboob Studios for a discussion by Bimalda. I waited outside the studio floor for Bimalda who was having lunch with Dilip Sahab. A little later, both came out and it did not take an instant for Dilip Sahab to see me and greet me warmly and tell Bimalda that I was his younger brother. The introduction boosted my confidence and I can never forget his generosity and goodness.

  Without exaggeration I can say that every actor who came into the business after him and who are continuing to seek employment in the industry has emulated him. I did not try that or even mimic him simply because I didn’t dare to. I evolved my own style of acting. But I have attempted to copy his goodness, his humility, his kindness, his warmth, his sincerity and his concern for the producer who sinks his money into a film project. He became the beacon in my life when stardom and success came to me and I did not know how to handle it. He warned me to keep sycophants away. He said the real test of your own family’s love for you will be when you do what you want to do for your happiness and not what they want you to do for their happiness.

  I may not meet him for months but I think of him every day because his photograph is the only photograph I have kept in my house beside the photographs of my parents and of my sons. When I was working with Saira I used to tell her jovia
lly that I am in competition with her for the love of Yousuf Sahab.

  I learnt from my parents that if you are intrinsically good, god bestows his choicest blessings on you. For all his goodness, Yousuf Sahab has been blessed by Allah with a wife who loves him madly and serves him unselfishly 24/7. I missed attending their marriage because I was shooting somewhere and my producer could not let me go.

  I was very close to Dilip Sahab’s family. He used to put us all, including his siblings, in his cars and take us for ice-cream to Badshah’s at Mohammad Ali Road [in Bombay] during Ramzaan after breaking the fast. I felt on top of the world at every opportunity I got to be with him. I observed his exemplary behaviour and his natural humility when he interacted with his admirers. From the most exalted admirer, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, to the lowest paid studio worker who waited to say [sic] salaams to him, his warm extension of his hands in greeting was the same. He never faked anything, be it his appreciation for another actor’s good work or his concern for a colleague who was in distress.

  I never got a chance to work with him but he made a special appearance in a film I starred in. The film was Paari [1967], produced by [actor] Abhi Bhattacharya’s wife Pronoti Ghosh. Abhi Bhattacharya was his dear friend. That, for me, was a feather in my cap.

  SITARA DEVI

  I SAW DILIP BHAI FOR THE FIRST TIME when my husband K. Asif invited him over to our house to consider him for the role of Salim in Anarkali, the film he was planning to make at that time. It must have been around 1945 as the war [the Second World War] had just ended and the need for entertainment in a depressed society was very strong. A financier had come forward to finance Asif and he was all for making a historical subject with spectacle and emotions.

  Asif had heard about this handsome new actor and so he said: ‘Let me take a look at him.’ He had Sapru [who later became a character actor] in mind but was happy considering a new actor if he was good.

  When Dilip Bhai came over and he walked into our living room I was speechless for a moment. I had expected a young man of reasonable good looks and personality but right in front of me was a young man who was not just handsome but was radiant, sophisticated and regal in bearing and manner. One could tell in an instant that he was someone special, someone who had Allah’s blessing.

  Asif and Dilip Bhai talked for a while and then he left. Asif was no doubt impressed but he felt Dilip Bhai was too lean. He felt Salim had to be played by an actor with the physique of a Mughal prince. What he then said proved indeed prophetic. ‘May be ten years from now if I rewrite a screenplay of the love story of Anarkali and Salim, he will be the actor I’d choose for Salim because he is born with princely qualities but is not ready yet for the role.’

  Our friendship began from that visit. Dilip Bhai went on to attain stardom and Asif cast Sapru in the role. But the film never got completed. The role was destined to be played by Dilip Bhai many years later and create its own magic.* A healthy friendship blossomed between Asif and Dilip Bhai. As everybody knows Dilip Bhai was equally proficient, both in English and Urdu. Asif’s flair for Urdu prose and poetry perhaps brought the two close. Other than that there was nothing in common between them. Dilip Bhai was soft spoken, refined, polite, shy and very elegant in his attire and manners. He was a star but was bereft of any pretensions. In fact, those were times when the industry worked more like a family and personal relations counted more than any material consideration when a team got together to make a film.

  Dilip Bhai was known as a star who worked diligently and fully co-operated with the producer once he signed a film. He was known to be choosy, of course. He chose his producer and director with care and so it made big news and gave the producer reason to celebrate when Dilip Kumar agreed to work with him. We – Asif, Dilip Bhai and I – went out often to visit common friends. When people began to gossip about our threesome going out to dine and so on, I tied him a Raakhee,** something I have kept up to this day. I go to his house each year on Raksha Bandhan, and my sweet bhabhi Saira, who is actually like a daughter to me since her mother Naseem and I were contemporaries, makes each occasion very special for me.

  Dilip Bhai was, and still is, a shy man. The only time I felt he was drawn to a co-star was when he worked with Kamini Kaushal. I feel she was his first love. She was educated and well spoken like him and could engage him in intelligent conversation. Her real name was Uma [Kashyap] and she had married her sister’s husband when her sister died and had become mother to her kids. So there was no way Dilip Bhai could have married her. When people started talking about them – the Dilip–Kamini pair had become a hit with Shaheed, Shabnam – I ventured to ask him one day if there was any truth in the gossip. He remained silent and changed the subject. A couple of months later he dropped in unexpectedly. Asif and I noticed that he was sad and hurt and he would break down. He was only in his mid-twenties then and I guessed it was the pain of breaking up with his love. Uma (Kamini) had been served a warning by her brother and she had informed Dilip Bhai that she wouldn’t be working with him or seeing him any more. As he spoke to us, I saw tears welling up in his sad eyes.

  In my view the heart-breaking moment in Dilip Bhai’s life was not the break-up with Uma but the time he learnt that Asif and Dilip Bhai’s sister Akhtar had eloped and married. By then I was out of Asif’s life as the wicked man had wooed and married my friend Nigar Sultana. When he had cast Nigar in Mughal-e-Azam he had made it seem as if he was doing it to please me as Nigar and I were good friends. But when he told me one fine day that he was going to marry Nigar, I couldn’t figure out who was the bigger fool – I or Nigar? I accepted his marriage to Nigar and also embraced the children born of the marriage because the kids would keep coming to me with all their innocent love. But his back stabbing Dilip Bhai was unacceptable to me. So I cursed him and told him he’d die for the sin he had committed by cheating Dilip Bhai who trusted him implicitly and had let him mingle with his sisters. I swore I wouldn’t see Asif’s face and severed all relations with him.

  Dilip Bhai was shattered because he had great hopes for Akhtar. All the six sisters were lucky to have a brother like him. He did everything possible to give them education and a good life. Only his eldest sister Sakina Aapa missed formal education and she remained a spinster. I knew Akhtar had had her college education in the USA and Dilip Bhai was very proud of her. Naturally then, it hurt him when she chose to marry a much-married man, twice her age.

  The only reason why Dilip Bhai did not attend the premiere of Mughal-e-Azam and even refused to see the movie at trial shows was because Asif had betrayed his trust.

  I still remember the day I received the news of Asif’s death [9 March 1971]. I had wound up a dance programme at Shanmukhananda Hall [in Bombay] and returned home. A phone call at two in the morning from Gopi Krishna [a famous classical dancer] sent a chill down my spine. I somehow sensed the news wasn’t good. Asif had called me two days ago and I had promised to meet him after the dance recital at Shanmukhananda Hall when I returned home. Gopi gave me the news and offered to go with me to see Asif’s face for the last time. I could hear my own voice ringing in my ears for I had told him he’d die a premature death for betraying Dilip Bhai.

  *The film is the epic Mughal-e-Azam (1960).

  **A sacred thread that a sister ties on her brother’s wrist.

  M. ASIF FAROOQUI *

  DURING THE LOK SABHA ELECTION (2014), I was a little listless, not being able to summon all my energies to campaign. One day, Roshan Baig (a Congress leader and a cabinet minister in Kartnataka) called me and inquired about my well-being and my political activity considering the impassioned state of the elections this summer. I honestly told him that I was unusually low this time. He reprimanded me gently saying: ‘You must get your act together Asif. I want to see the Asif of the previous elections.’ ‘I know’, I acknowledged and, as if on an impulse, added: ‘Dilip Sahab is not active politically and without him guiding me, politics doesn’t seem the same.’ Roshan Baig sighed in agreement: �
��You are right Asif, you are right. Without Dilip Sahab by our side, things are just not what they used to be.’

  Dilip Sahab is my guiding light not just in politics, but also in life. When I first expressed an inclination to join politics, he advised me to get associated with social causes – those that involved the uplift of the downtrodden. For him politics was about humanity. It was not about becoming popular. And that is one of the most important lessons that I learnt from him.

  To this date, he enjoys the patronage of the eminent statesmen. When the late Sunil Dutt Sahab (who passed away on 25 May 2005) wanted to resign from his parliamentary seat in early 1996 due to a moral stand he had taken, it was Dilip Sahab who stood behind him. This gave Sunil Dutt Sahab the strength to run the risk of earning the displeasure of the then prime minister, P. V. Narasimha Rao. I was a witness to this entire episode. Sunil Dutt Sahab, in a very agitated state of mind, kept calling Dilip Sahab, who was out travelling with me, at his residence. In 1996, mobile phones were a rarity. I had just bought one and Dutt Sahab finally traced Dilip Sahab, whom he called from my phone. All along Dilip Sahab kept saying: ‘Don’t worry, I’m there with you.’ And he did stand behind Dutt Sahab during those testing times. And always he did so.

  The world knows and describes Dilip Kumar using epithets such as THE LEGEND and THE SUPERSTAR. However, I know him as a true symbol of the Ganga-Jamuni culture that defines the spirit of India, a true gentleman, an honourable and compassionate human being and an unobtrusive leader of leaders.

  I have had the honour of being associated with him for almost 30 years – since my teens – and now as I sit back and try to understand the dynamics of this most unlikely companionship between an icon like him and an unknown person like me, I rummage through the crevices of my memory.