{"id":115885,"date":"2021-07-07T15:39:36","date_gmt":"2021-07-07T22:39:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=115885"},"modified":"2021-07-08T13:20:04","modified_gmt":"2021-07-08T20:20:04","slug":"in-memoriam-dilip-kumar-december-11-1922-july-7-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/07\/07\/in-memoriam-dilip-kumar-december-11-1922-july-7-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"In Memoriam Dilip Kumar (December 11, 1922 – July 7, 2021)"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Rohana R. Wasala<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Dilip\nKumar died today, July 7, 2021. The following is a marginally updated version\nof a review I wrote of the legendary actor\u2019s autobiography  Dilip Kumar \u2013 The Substance and\nthe Shadow\u201d immediately after its publication in 2014. The review was published\nin The Island Satmag supplement on October 04, 2014 under the heading: <\u2018Dilip Kumar \u2013 The Substance\nand the Shadow\u2019: the life story of a living legend by Rohana R. Wasala>,\nstill accessible in The Island archives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u2018DILIP KUMAR \u2013 The Substance and the Shadow\u2019 (2014)\npublished by Hay House India  is the autobiography of  legendary\nHindi cinema actor Dilip Kumar (born Yusuf Khan) who died today July 7, 2021 at\nthe age of 98. The book entered the Amazon best seller list within two weeks of\nits publication. Award winning film journalist Udayatara Nayar, a close friend\nof Dilip Kumar and his wife actress Saira Banu, has put into book form the\nactor\u2019s life story as related to her by him. It is an authentic account of his\nlong journey in life from his unremarkable childhood as the fourth in a large\nfamily of twelve children (six boys and six girls) to dizzying heights of\nachievement and fame as a film actor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Udayatara says in her introduction to the book, the idea of\nwriting the biography was conceived in 2004. One warm afternoon in Mumbai\u2019s\nmidsummer that year, she was helping Saira to arrange the books in the\nbookshelf in her bedroom. This bookshelf contained a good stock of books of\nfiction and works of poetry in English and Urdu. Dilip is known to be an avid\nreader. Picking up a book written by an author who claimed to have known him\nbetter than any one else, Dilip told Saira, This is supposed to be my biography\nand it is full of distortions and misinformation\u201d. Saira seized the opportunity\nto repeat her frequent suggestion to her husband that he write his own\nbiography as India\u2019s first ever superstar and one of the world\u2019s greatest\nactors\u201d. All right, I will narrate my story\u201d, Dilip said in reply, It has to\nbe compiled by someone who is enlightened and ready to put in the hard work\nthat goes into anything I do and it should be someone who knows us really\nwell\u201d. Then Saira said, pointing to Udayatara, She is right here\u201d. That\u2019s how\nMs Nayar was assigned the exacting task of compiling Dilip Kumar\u2019s\nautobiography. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The assignment was a rare opportunity for Udayatara to realize a\nlifelong dream. Dilip Kumar was an extremely private person who was not always\ncomfortable talking about himself and his unequalled achievements\u201d. It was an\nachievement for her to be invited to write his biography. She thought it was a\ndream come true. Her introduction concludes with a retrospective reference to\nsome encouraging words about her that Dilip Sahab\u201d spoke to S.S. Pillai,\neditor of the cinema magazine \u2018Screen\u2019, after she wrote a long analytical\narticle about him early in her career as a film journalist. (I discovered from\nthe Wikipedia, that S.S. Pillai was Udaya Tara\u2019s paternal uncle, though she\ndoesn\u2019t mention this fact in the book.)  Dilip had said to him: Groom\nher, make her work hard and she will go places. She has the potential to become\na biographer someday\u201d. After nearly half a century of her association with the\nstar couple, Udayatara believes that his words have proved prophetic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The book comprises twenty-five chapters plus a separate section\nfor \u2018Reminiscences\u2019 which accounts for about a quarter of the volume in length.\nThere are forty-three \u2018Reminiscences\u2019 which are from a wide range of admirers\nincluding such idols of the film world as Amitabh Bacchan, Dharmendra, Amir\nKhan, Nimmi, Waheeda Rehman, Lata Mangeshkar, Vyjayanthimala and Sharmila\nTagore, and Dilip\u2019s nephews and nieces, and their children, and even from his\nlongtime personal dhobi (washer -man) Pyarelal, who all express genuinely felt\nadmiration of the iconic personality of Dilip.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dilip dedicated the book to Amma and Aghagi\u201d. What strikes the\nreader in the opening chapters is his great love for and strong attachment\nto  his mother, Ayesha Begum, and his awe and admiration of his father\nMohammad Sarwar Khan who, apparently, with his impressive physique was a\ncommanding presence in his childhood and youth. But he was a loving kindhearted\nman. He writes on p. 169: I loved Amma deeply. She was the fountainhead of all\nthe merits and virtues we \u2013 her children \u2013 possessed. She dealt with all the\nexigencies of life with a quiet poise and calmness of mind\u201d. But it was the\nauthoritarian matriarch, his paternal grandmother, he calls \u2018Dadi\u2019, who ruled\nthe large household in his childhood. She doted on him, adored him, in spite of\nthe fact that he was not a single grandson, but just one of six. Dilip was\nexceptionally good-looking as a child. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(On reading these first few pages, I found what looked like a\ncertain obsessive preoccupation with his own looks, and began to suspect that\nhe was as narcissistic as his friend Dev Anand obviously was  in his\nself-written autobiography \u2018Romancing with Life\u2019. But reading on convinced me\nthat I was mistaken in my conjecture. His attractive physical features were\nundeniably there, and it is a fact he humbly mentions; it was a gift of nature\nthat was an asset in his profession. Apart from mere good looks, there\ndefinitely was enough \u2018substance\u2019 in Yusuf Khan that justified the larger than\nlife celluloid \u2018shadow\u2019 by which Dilip Kumar was known to the world.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Dadi\u2019 treated him as an extraordinary child because the night (11th<\/sup> of\nwintry December) that Ayesha\u2019s handsome son Yousuf arrived\u201d it was freezing\ncold, but on the same night there was a huge fire in the Kissa Khwani Bazaar\n(in Peshawar), his birth place, that gutted the goldsmiths\u2019 workshops. On top\nof this, one day a wandering fakir who came to their house seeking alms, fixed\nhis eyes on the cherubic Yusuf and told the old woman that he was born for\nunparalleled achievements and great fame, and that he would be handsome even in\nhis old age, and that he should be protected from the world\u2019s evil eye; for\nthis he recommended that he be disfigured with black soot! So the superstitious\ngrandmother shaved Yusuf\u2019s head and defaced him with soot as recommended by the\nfakir before he was sent to school. Yusuf had to endure being made fun of by\nhis schoolmates. It took some time and great persuasion by other elders\nincluding his Amma to save the little Yusuf from this daily humiliation that\nwas brought on him by his doting but domineering Dadi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dilip\u2019s Amma was a beautiful woman according to him; she was fair,\nfrail and petite. She was very kind and loving. She did all the cooking for the\nlarge family and looked after all their needs in spite of there being servants.\nBut towards the end of her life she suffered from severe attacks of asthma.\nLittle Yusuf used to trail his mother all the time, sometimes unknown to her.\nThere is the story of how, once while stalking his mother thus, he accidentally\ngot shut up in a room alone with the corpse of a murdered\nneighbour.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Peshawar in the North Western Frontier Province Mohammad\nSarwar Khan moved to the hilly station of Deolali (180 km from Mumbai in\nMaharashtra) with his large young family in the mid 1930\u2019s (This was\npre-partition India) because the prospects for his business were better there.\nAs the children were growing up Mohammad Sarwar was able to provide for the\nfamily with ease, but later life became difficult. It seems that of the boys\nonly Yusuf proved to be of some help to the parents. Dilip had a good school\neducation at Deolali and in Bombay. After leaving school, he found employment\nin an army canteen in Pune, where he earned some extra money through a sandwich\nbusiness. It was by accident that he was spotted by Devika Rani, an actress and\nwife of Himanshu Rai, owner of the film company Bombay Talkies, who introduced\nhim to the industry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But his survival and success in the industry were not left to\nchance. Perfection, ceaseless hard work, and commitment to his profession have\nbeen characteristic of Dilip Kumar since the beginning. He is the most\nconscientious, most socially conscious, most professional cine artiste I have\nread about. Readers of \u2018The Substance and the Shadow\u2019, I am sure, will make a\nsimilar assessment of him as an entertainer par excellence who is acutely aware\nof a moral responsibility to the society. And he had been socially engaged all\nalong, despite his having had to contend with a certain amount of \nprejudice, which was not unusual in a large country like India. By being\nequally celebrated in his native India and in the neighbouring country Pakistan,\nhe was a symbol of Indo-Pak solidarity: he was the superstar that both\ncountries jointly claimed. The major portion of the book deals with the\nprofessional side of the actor\u2019s life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dilip Kumar\u2019s private life was much less glamorous than his\nprofessional life. Though he was the fourth child in the family, he had to\nassume the role of a single parent for his siblings after the death of his\nmother and father. He provided them with the means to obtain their education in\nIndia and abroad as they wanted. He married off the sisters. He himself put off\nhis marriage because of his desire to see all his sisters settled before him.\nMany people raised their eye brows when he married Saira Banu in 1966 who was\nhalf his age (he was 44, and she only 22). But when we read the details of the\nstory, it strikes us as natural as it is interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It appeared that they were born for each other. For many fans of\nDilip and Saira, their marriage was something they never looked forward to. The\ncelebrated Madhubala-Dilip romance was still fresh in their minds. When we read\nthe special chapter on Madhubala (Chapter 13, p. 166-171), we understand why\nthey had to break up; both lovers emerge as innocent victims of Madhubala\u2019s\ndespotic as well as mercenary father Ataullah\u2019s scheming. It is clear that\nSaira looked at that past of Dilip\u2019s life with understanding and kindness. Soon\nafter their marriage in 1966, Dilip got a call from Madhubala for an urgent\nmeeting with her at her home. By that time she was ill and bed-ridden. He told\nSaira about this. Saira at once insisted that he should go to see her because\nit had to be something that distressed her. So Dilip went to Madhubala\u2019s house.\nIt was some personal problem she wanted him to advise her on. He said she\nseemed satisfied with what he said in response. She looked frail and weak. She\nmanaged her magnificent, impish smile\u201d with an effort. Madhubala was happy to\nsee Dilip. She said, Our prince has got his princess, I am very happy!\u201d\n(p.261). I think that this was a reference to Mughal-e-Azam\u201d, the 1960 film,\nwhich was Madhubala\u2019s and its director K. Asif\u2019s magnum opus. Dilip and\nMadhubala played the lead roles, the former as prince Salim, son of king Akbar\nthe Great, and Madhubala as Anarkali, the beautiful court dancer that the young\nroyal heir apparent fell in love with;  the incompatible love affair\nbetween the two was fiercely opposed by the king. The adamant prince Salim even\nwent to war with his father over this. In the end, however, the romance fails,\nand Anarkali is exiled, leaving Salim to be reconciled with his father. The\nreal affair between Madhubala and Dilip was similarly intense and similarly\ntragic. When the sick Madhubala told Dilip Our prince has got his princess, I\nam very happy!\u201d, she must have been thinking of her failed romantic involvement\nwith the latter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apart from Madhubala\u2019s unquestioning submission to her father\u2019s\nwishes all the time which had an adverse impact on her professional reputation\nbut also on her health needlessly\u201d, he had observed a certain fickleness in her\nromantic alliances: she certainly would have been drawn to other colleagues in\nthe profession\u201d (p.168). This is something confirmed by Nimmi in her\n\u2018Reminiscences\u2019 (p.413-416). Nimmi,( who is familiar to us Sri Lankans as\nplaying the female lead in the Hindi film \u2018Angulimala\u2019 (1960) against Bharat\nBhushan the hero), co-starred with Dilip and Madhubala in \u2018Amar\u2019 (1954). She\nsays that their break-up was imminent by the end of shooting of \u2018Amar\u2019; her\nsuspicion was that Dilip probably came to know about Premnath and Madhubala\nbeing more than just friendly co-stars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Incidentally, Nimmi, in her reminiscences, talks about the\npremiere of Aan in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) which she attended with Dilip, presumably\nin 1952. They were co-stars in Aan (1952) which she says was India\u2019s first\nTechnicolor film. The Lankan premiere of the film was one of the biggest\naccording to her. Massive crowds lined the streets from the airport to the\nhotel where they were accommodated. They were all Dilip Kumar fans; there was\nmass hysteria, Nimmi remembers. The crowds broke all cordons at the airport and\neven ignored security restrictions at the hotel to see him. Nimmi says she had\nnever seen anything so maddening.  (I have never heard or read about Dilip\nand Nimmi\u2019s visit to Sri Lanka in 1952 anywhere else.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There may not be such Dilip fans in Sri Lanka today. But this\nautobiography of  his will prove a useful as well as enthralling read for\nall cinema enthusiasts including particularly young actors and ordinary\ncinema-goers. Dilip Kumar is an iconic figure that we too have a right to claim\nas belonging to us too and to be inspired by because of our historical,\nlinguistic, religious and cultural ties with India.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Rohana R. Wasala Dilip Kumar died today, July 7, 2021. The following is a marginally updated version of a review I wrote of the legendary actor\u2019s autobiography  Dilip Kumar \u2013 The Substance and the Shadow\u201d immediately after its publication in 2014. The review was published in The Island Satmag supplement on October 04, 2014 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-115885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rohana-r-wasala"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115885\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}