Remembering Dilip Kumar, the legendary actor, who has bowed out at 98

Dilip Kumar was Indian cinema's first and most influential Khan - an extraordinary force that inspired generations of actors

In a congested lane of the famous Qissa Khwani Bazaar (market of storytellers) in Peshawar, Pakistan, stands a two-storey house where a boy was born on December 11, 1922. Named Muhammad Yusuf Khan, he would grow up to be recognised as the first Khan of Indian cinema – long before the other three Khans, Aamir, Shah Rukh and Salman, even appeared on the planet. We would know him as Dilip Kumar, the screen name he adopted on the advice of Devika Rani, the first lady of the Indian film industry.

After a momentous cinematic journey and an eventful life that was no less than a film story in itself, Dilip Kumar breathed his last at 7.30 am on July 7, 2021 at Hinduja Hospital in Mumbai where he was admitted since June 30 after he complained of breathlessness. He was 98. He is survived by his wife, actor Saira Banu.

Kumar was more than an actor. He was an institution that inspired generations of actors through a career that spanned 54 years and 65 films, starting with “Jwar Bhata” (1944). Though his first film did not make a mark, it brought the lanky Pathan with hypnotic eyes into the limelight. The role that would firmly establish him as an actor would, however, come only five years later, with Mehboob Khan’s “Andaz” (1949) where he starred alongside Nargis and Raj Kapoor, who was two years his junior and whose ancestral home was also in Peshawar, a short distance from Kumar’s.

While Kapoor’s style was Chaplinesque and drew heavily from the genius of the silent film era, Kumar’s approach favoured realism. A “method” actor (a style he pioneered), he believed in internalising every character he played, and in the process brought a rare combination of restraint and intensity to the screen.

Tragedy became his forte, so much so that he came to be called “Tragedy King”. Somewhere, this bent towards the tragic had its roots in his childhood in Peshawar, as he revealed in his autobiography, “Dilip Kumar – The Substance and The Shadow”, published in 2014.

The story goes that he was playing in his house one day, when a fakir (ascetic) arrived at the doorstep, took one look at the boy and prophesied, “This child is made for great fame… protect him from the world's evil eye.” From that day on his grandmother would let him step out of the house only after smearing his forehead with soot. The trauma of the alienation he experienced in school because of this would play out in his films later.

In Bimal Roy’s “Devdas” (1955), he would take it to another level, as a man drowning himself in alcohol and a life of despair. Sparse in dialogue, but with his eyes and silence saying it all, he and Roy would create a masterpiece that would be remembered as the most definitive narration of Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s 1917 Bengali romance novel, “Devdas”. (Forty-seven years later, Sanjay Leela Bhansali would attempt to recreate the epic romantic drama with Shah Rukh Khan, Aishwarya Rai and Madhuri Dixit – a foolhardy venture since the finest film on the tragedy had already been made. Shah Rukh Khan’s ancestral home, incidentally, is not far from Dilip Kumar’s in Peshawar and the actor has often said that he chose the world of cinema because of how immensely influenced he was by “Dilip Sa’ab”.)

The clear break from theatre-led acting to cinema-led acting came from Dilip Kumar’s dialogue delivery, which both Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan later tried to copy, as did other actors. The nuances, the pauses, the whispers, and the stillness. No one enacted stillness and silence the way Dilip Kumar did. Who else could capture the loneliness of the evening in Talat Mahmood’s haunting “Sham-e-gham ki kasam” (“Footpath”, 1953); or the melancholy of a lovelorn prince in Mukesh’s “Yeh mera deewanapan hai” (“Yehudi”, 1958) the way he did?

By the time of “Devdas” (the original one), Dilip Kumar’s film career was touching new heights, but the tragic characters he had been immersing himself in one after the other were beginning to take a toll on his mental wellbeing. To pull him out of the abyss he found himself sinking in, his doctor advised him to take a break from tragedy and look for lighter roles. The film world would now see a whole new side of Dilip Kumar – comical, mischievous, even roguish.

“Ram Aur Shyam” (1967), where he played a double role – one of a street-smart fellow and the other of his shy, cowardly twin – became one of that year’s highest grossing film, in India and the Soviet Union (it hadn’t fragmented into many countries until then). The film would inspire numerous remakes: “Seet Aur Geeta” (with Hema Malini in a double role), “Chaalbaaz” (Sridevi), “Kishen Kanhaiya” (Anil Kapoor), and others.

But before “Ram Aur Shyam” would come Asif Ali’s mega historical drama, “Mughal-e-Azam”, where he as Prince Salim would stand up to his intimidating father, Emperor Akbar. The actor, as he played Salim, too, was up against a stalwart of Indian drama (Prithviraj Kapoor, playing Akbar). Released on August 5, 1960, the film would break all box office records, becoming the highest grossing Indian movie of all times – and it would remain so for the next 15 years.

Without Dilip Kumar, none of these films is even imaginable.

A story goes that in 1962 British director David Lean offered him a role of Sherif Ali in “Lawrence of Arabia”, which he declined, and the part went to Egyptian actor Omar Sharif, whose career then got propelled to a whole new level.

Towards the end of the 1960s, however, things began to change, with Dilip Kumar losing many roles to the new actors on the scene – Rajesh Khanna and Sanjeev Kumar.

So, Dilip Kumar took a break for five years and returned in 1981, now as a character actor in “Kranti”, which also became the biggest hit of the year. Other big successes followed, such as Subhash Ghai’s “Vidhaata” and Ramesh Sippy’s “Shakti” (the first and only film to feature Dilip Kumar and Amitabh Bachchan together on screen). His final appearance was in 1998, in “Qila”, which didn’t do much at the box office.

In his lifetime, Dilip Kumar was awarded with eight Filmfare Awards – the highest for any actor. The first one, too, had gone to him (for “Daag”). The Dadasaheb Phalke Award came in 1994. Before that came the Padma Bhushan and later the Padma Vibhushan. In 1998, the government of Pakistan, too, honoured him with its highest civilian honour, the Nishan-e-Imtiaz (Order of Excellence) – he’s the only Indian to be honoured with it.

Often, there have been demands across the border to restore Dilip Kumar’s crumbling haveli in Peshawar – that house in a lane of stories from where it all started. It was declared a national heritage in 2014, to be restored and turned into a museum. Perhaps it will happen now. Read here

Looking back at the cinema of this actor extraordinaire, one thing is clear: There will not be another Dilip Kumar.