Dilip Kumar: 11 December 1922, Peshawar – 07 July 2021, Mumbai
A lifelong fan, scholar and former diplomat reflects on the film icon Dilip Kumar’s visit to Quetta;, how a student at a boarding school in Abbottabad replaced the actor’s face with his own in an ‘Aan’ film poster; and why the Peshawar-born actor remains a symbol of peace and inter-communal harmony.
Commentary
By Akbar Ahmed / Sapan News
Who does the legendary actor Dilip Kumar belong to? Born in December 1922 in Peshawar, he passed away in Mumbai, on 7 July 2021, at age 98. Millions on either side of the India-Pakistan border adored him. Pakistan honoured him with the Nishan-i-Imtiaz in 1988. India conferred upon him the Padma Bhushan in 1991, followed by several other awards.
In 2014, Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif declared Dilip Kumar’s family house in Peshawar’s Qissa Khawani Bazaar, a national monument. After his passing, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi termed him a “cinematic legend” of “unparalleled brilliance.” Then Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, and former President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai expressed their condolences.
Five years after Dilip Kumar left us, let us pause and reflect on the iconic actor and his vast contribution towards peace in Southasia and wherever Southasians live.
As a believer in inter-religious, inter-communal harmony, when I see the popularity of contemporary films like Dhurandhar and Dhurandhar: The Revenge with violent themes which focus on the destruction of Pakistan, I despair.
But then I remember meeting Dilip Kumar in Quetta, Baluchistan, where I was then Commissioner.
One-on-one
Dilip Kumar and his wife Saira Banu were visiting Pakistan in 1988, at a time of tensions between India and Pakistan. As his escorting officer during their visit to Quetta, I received them at the airport, took them to visit the local hospital, had lunch in the Governor’s House, then to their guesthouse, before seeing them off at the airport that evening.
We moved into the Commissioner’s car. Saira Banu and the rest of the party followed in separate vehicles. During these drives where I had the opportunity for one-on-one conversations with Dilip Kumar, he engaged with ideas like a practiced diplomat or polished artist used to the media, making me feel as if we were old friends.
Using my brief but extraordinary access, I asked Dilip Kumar what he considered his greatest role. Devdas, he replied. Not because he played the title character, he explained, speaking softly and slowly, as he did on screen. The story, based on a popular classic novel, captures a central conundrum of our Southasian society. Set at the turn of the century in rural Bengal, it is the simple but tragic tale of two lovers trapped by the immutable laws of their caste.
After Devdas‘ beloved is forced to marry a man chosen by her family, he turns to alcohol. But he keeps his promise to meet her once before he dies, and arrives outside her home to take his last breaths. The story has seen many film versions, including one starring the Bollywood superhero Shahrukh Khan.
There was also a personal reason why Kumar mentioned Devdas, released in 1955, for which he won the Filmfare award for Best Actor, the Indian equivalent of the Oscars. He said he prepared for his film roles by inhabiting the character and in the case of Devdas he became the doomed lover. The character’s pessimism stayed with him, affecting his personality.
The physicians he turned to for advice recommended taking up different kinds of roles, lighthearted and jovial. A string of hits followed which were more of the typical Bombay song and dance cinema, like Kohinoor, Ram aur Shyam, and Leader.
Over a career spanning five decades, Dilip Kumar worked in 57 films. But it is as a serious actor that he is remembered – the tragic lover, with many songs picturised on him based on themes of pain, loss and defeat. Besides Devdas, other classic tragic 1950s’ films like Uran Khatola, Babul, Daag, Dedaar and Andaz, established him as the “king of tragedy.”
The other big stars dominating the Indian cinema then included Raj Kapoor and Dev Anand. But no one could really match Kumar.
Even after the 1970s when a new kind of hero was in demand and younger stars like Amitabh Bachchan and Shashi Kapoor became popular, Dilip Kumar still won awards after awards. In fact, he has received the most Filmfare awards for Best Actor – eight; besides 19 nominations and holds the Guinness World Record for receiving the most awards by an Indian actor.
A Rediff readers’ poll in 2011 voted him “The Greatest Indian actor of all time”. In 2013, on the centenary of Indian cinema, a Filmfare poll placed Dilip Kumar as “the biggest superstar of all time”. Cinema directors and critics have ranked his Mughal-e-Azam as the greatest film of all time in poll after poll.
Abbottabad, Aan and beyond
I grew up in Abbottabad in north Pakistan in the 1950s, considered the golden era of Indian cinema, which Dilip Kumar dominated.
Most of these films were black and white and are now considered classic cinema. Aan was an exception. India’s first colour movie starring Dilip Kumar, it was so popular in Pakistan that it played in Karachi for several years.
Decades later some of his major films like Naya Daur and Mughal-e-Azam were converted into colour and re-released.
The movie Aan gained huge popularity with the boys at my boarding school, Burn Hall, now called Army Burn Hall, particularly the film poster – Kumar, hands on hips, defiant smile, hair on his forehead, and dagger at his waist, all of which screamed the dashing romantic hero.
A student from Pakistan’s northern areas, named Chu, a nod to the Chinese Prime Minister Chu En Lai, took a poster and cut out Kumar’s face, replacing it with his own. He placed it next to his bed. The boys in the dormitory were furious: How dare Chu replace Dilip Kumar!
Dilip Kumar’s very name became a byword for a heroic, tragic figure. Students from my school days would tease each other with phrases like, “So you think you’re Dilip Kumar!”
Posted to East Pakistan later, I saw a great big portrait of Dilip Kumar in the main lobby of a cinema in a remote area. There was no film of his playing there; the picture was a stand-alone tribute to him.
I saw Devdas in London as an undergraduate in the 1960s, with friends at a special Sunday show and again marvelled at Dilip Kumar’s star power. His lines from the film were still widely recognized and quoted, like: “Kaun kambakht hai joh bardaasht karne ke liye peeta hai … Main toh peeta hoon ki bas saans le sakun“ (Which unfortunate drinks to tolerate life? I drink so that I can breathe).
It was in London that I met Dilip Kumar and Saira Banu again, just after I finished serving as High Commissioner for Pakistan there, when they were guests of honour at a farewell dinner for me in the year 2000. This was at the farm of prominent Pakistani-origin landlord Mohsin Akhtar outside Cambridge.
Dilip Kumar’s personal life had the quality of one of his film scripts. Muhammad Yusuf Khan, as he was originally named, assumed the stage name Dilip Kumar in his debut film Jawar Bhata, 1944. The film made him almost an overnight screen sensation.
In the public imagination he was paired with Madhubala in her beauty and brilliant acting. Their falling out during the shooting of Naya Daur ended in a bitter court case.
In 1966 he married Saira Banu, 22 years younger, and an ardent fan. His 1981 marriage to Asma Rahman, a Hyderabad socialite, lasted only a couple of years. His life-long companion remained Saira Banu.
Pluralist identity
But the name of Dilip Kumar was greater than the sum of its parts, an individual personally and publicly acknowledged by presidents and prime ministers of several countries, besides his own. With his towering reputation he was made a member of the upper house of Parliament (2000-2006) and offered many other honorifics. He was even appointed honorary Sheriff of Mumbai in 1980.
Entire generations of actors copied his style, including his hairstyle and way of speaking, from Amitabh Bachchan to Shahrukh Khan. In Pakistan the leading actor Santosh Kumar took his name to reflect Dilip Kumar, and film star Nadeem’s popularity rested on his imitation of Kumar.
Dilip Kumar’s very name was redolent of romance and tragedy while confronting the essential beauty of humanity in each one of us. Seeing him on the silver screen, males wanted to be Dilip Kumar, and females yearned to be the object of devotion that he conveyed in his language of love with its purity, consistency and selfless nature.
His commanding and dignified presence on the screen became characteristic of his brand, contrasting with the flamboyant style of other popular actors like the Kapoors and even Dev Anand. The contrast is clear in Andaz, the only film Kumar starred in alongside Raj Kapoor. Raj gets the girl but it is Kumar who emerges as the real tragic hero.
Dilip Kumar’s stature as possibly the greatest movie star produced in India is virtually unchallenged. So is his reputation as a legendary figure that helped shape modern India and its idea of itself as a pluralist and tolerant society. Like Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister, Dilip Kumar symbolised pluralist identity in the new nation. The relationship between them was widely known. Nehru often turned up at the launch of a new movie.
When the censor board demanded an impossible number of cuts in Ganga Jamna, the only movie Dilip Kumar produced, Dilip went to Delhi and met Nehru. They saw the film together. The film, set in rural Bihar, was entirely shot on location, with the characters including Dilip Kumar in the lead, all speaking the local dialect Poorbi. This was method acting at its finest.
Nehru got the film passed without a single cut – a story Dilip Kumar recounts in a video clip doing the rounds on social media.
In fact, social media today is replete with videos testifying to Dilip Kumar’s stature and iconic position. In one clip, he is with the popular actor Dharmendra, himself a superstar, who always adored Dilip Kumar as his personal hero. “I asked God why did you not make me as handsome as Dharmendra?” asks Dilip Kumar. The look of pure joy on Dharmendra’s face is priceless as he bows to touch Dilip’s feet in respect. Saira Banu has recounted how she and Dharmendra would argue about who loves Dilip Kumar more.
While Dilip Kumar was never a stage actor, he brought a certain style of acting which hinted at the stage. He spoke slowly and in measured tones, and his diction would satisfy the strictest purist. He did not move too much in front of the camera, compared to his contemporaries. Above all, he brought a sense of gravitas and dignity to his roles.
In the 1950s several prominent British stage actors went on to dominate the screen. These included Laurence Olivier, Richard Burton and Alec Guinness. But the transition from stage to screen was never smooth. Recall Olivier warning Burton that he could either be a household name or a great actor. Dilip was both. He remained choosy about his roles – his 57 films are few compared to those of his contemporaries; Dharmendra made over 300.
After Dilip Kumar refused director David Lean’s offer of the lead in Lawrence of Arabia, the role famously went to Omar Sharif. Dilip has said that he thought Omar Sharif played the role far better than he himself could have.
This remains one of the “what if” questions of history. Had Dilip accepted Lean’s invitation, would he have gone on to play the roles Sharif later got, like Dr. Zhivago?
Complexities and depth
Southasian society is complex, changing, and dynamic. It also has deep structures, like the reality of religious identity. Many Muslims from Kabul to Calcutta see Dilip Kumar as the ultimate screen hero and a source of pride. Many non-Muslims question his loyalty to India and his obvious affection for the land of his birth, Pakistan. He never flaunted his religion, but never abandoned it either.
There have been ridiculous attempts to paint him with the brush of treason. At one stage during the 1965 war with Pakistan the Indian authorities raided his home in Bombay and confiscated a radio, claiming that it allowed him to speak directly to the Pakistan Army. Some Indians vociferously condemned him for accepting Pakistan’s highest civil award.
Yet Dilip Kumar was not deterred from the persona he represented off and on screen, and remained an immutable cultural bridge between nations and communities. The saying ‘Blessed are the peacemakers’ is widely known, and Kumar remains an icon of peace.
I remember being mobbed everywhere we stopped during his Quetta visit, by wives of senior ministers, and elders, imploring a picture with him. There was no shyness or notions of rural or tribal modesty about them. They were fans and they wanted to convey that. Dusk was falling as I took them to the airport. A sizeable crowd had gathered to take pictures and bid them farewell.
I close with comments from the historian Rajmohan Gandhi, a grandson of the Mahatma and a prominent public intellectual promoting dialogue and inter-communal harmony, shared with his permission:
“Through this piece you bring to life a proud priceless past, dear Akbar. Very few today can claim the relationship with Dilip Kumar that you had. One day it will again become possible for Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Indians to cry for one another, laugh with one another, and together create songs and movies that stir human beings everywhere. Meanwhile, we weep over what’s happening in hallowed places. Stay well.”
Dr. Akbar Ahmed is a distinguished Professor of International Relations and Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University and a Wilson Center Global Fellow. He has held appointments at Brookings Institution, the U.S. Naval Academy, Cambridge, Harvard, and Princeton. Earlier, he spent more than three decades working with the Civil Service of Pakistan, including as Commissioner in Balochistan, Political Agent in the Tribal Areas, and Pakistan High Commissioner to the U.K. and Ireland. This article for Sapan News draws upon his piece published last month in Viewsnewsnow.com and The Friday Times.
This is a Sapan News syndicated feature available for republication with due credit https://www.sapannews.com.
Note on Southasia as one word: We use ‘Southasia’ as one word, “seeking to restore some of the historical unity of our common living space, without wishing any violence on the existing nation states” – Himal Southasian
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