Author, scriptwriter and film historian Dinesh Raheja remembers the legend who revelled in his prolonged silences but was great at humour
Dilip Kumar. Pic/Vickky Idnaani
I came of cinematic age in the Rajesh Khanna-Amitabh Bachchan era, so I discovered Dilip Kumar tad late. During the glorious six-month vacation between my ISC exams and college, my schedule would span street cricket, long, lazy lunches and morning matinee shows, which were my personal initiation into cinema literacy and the golden era of black-and-silver. Many of the films I devoured were Kumar’s classics like Andaz (1949), Deedar (1951), Amar (1954), and Madhumati (1958). Even my hipster teen self was impressed by the eloquence of the actor’s silences—whether as the star-crossed Prince Salim of Mughal-e-Azam (1960) or in the titular role of the lovelorn Devdas (1955). He may have been dubbed the Tragedy King, but I went on to discover that his comic timing was also impeccable—Aan (1952), Azaad (1955), Kohinoor (1960), Ram Aur Shyam (1967) and in Bairaag, where he played a triple role with Saira Banu, Leena Chandavarkar and Helen as his three heroines.
The legend surrounding Kumar is enormously powerful and straddles generations. There are few actors with an oeuvre as impressive, and a personality as distinctive. So in the mid-’80s, when the editor of the film magazine I worked for, asked me if I would like to interview Kumar, I let out an enthusiastic whoop! Much before the appointed hour, I was at the Pali Hill bungalow owned by the actor’s star wife, Saira Banu. I was ushered into a huge living room in which I waited patiently. A man’s voice jovially humming snatches of a song from Ram Aur Shyam heralded the arrival of Kumar in a starched white shirt. His pace was leisurely, his smile broad. After exchanging pleasantries, he invited me for a cup of tea in the bungalow’s lush, sprawling lawn. But, the moment I drew out my dictaphone, the famous on screen mumbler—his characteristic style of dialogue delivery though you had to strain your ears to hear him—grew tight-lipped. The interview, which took place in spurts, was interspersed with Kumar asking me to enjoy the silence and listen to the chirping of the birds. Here was an actor who was definitely unique. The rare insight I obtained from the interview was Kumar telling me that at his school, the compositions they were asked to write were not the ‘my summer holiday’ variety. After a prolonged, nail-biting silence, he told me, “We were asked to write a composition on what the bumble bee told the flower.” To date, I am not sure if Kumar was pulling my leg or was dead serious, but I recall that he said it with a straight face.
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I also met him in Cochin when producer Yash Johar had flown a press contingent to attend the shooting of Duniya (1984). Kumar was enjoying a creative resurgence as a character actor who could still topline movies. I have a vivid memory of Rishi Kapoor and him playing cricket in between shots, but Kumar and I didn’t go beyond hellos because there seemed to be an impregnable wall around him. He spent much of his time with Banu, who was making a career comeback in a cameo appearance in the film for her friend, Johar’s sake.
I got to know Kumar better, and even shot pictures of the star, at the outdoor location of Subhash Ghai’s Karma (1986) in Pahalgam. The thought that struck me while framing him in the picturesque setting was that however big the celebrity, he/she will look insignificant, like all human life, against the majestic eternal mountains that formed the backdrop. Of course, I didn’t share my sentiments with him. Instead, in-between shots, Poonam Dhillon, Kumar and I played the word game, Scrabble. If Kumar decided a word was not acceptable, the only choice one had was to gracefully make a new word.
A few years later, I drove down to Film City where he was shooting once again with Ghai, this time for Saudagar (1991), a film much talked about for his pairing with Raaj Kumar. Ghai tentatively approached him in the lunch break to introduce me. But Kumar, much to my delight, proclaimed that he knew me well. He gave my colleague Jitendra Kothari and me an extensive interview peppered with interesting anecdotes, dating back to his debut with Jwar Bhatta (1944) at Bombay Talkies. He didn’t lose his cool even when we pointed out some anomalies—yes, he worked in only a couple of films at a time, but he did have multiple releases in the late 1940s because schedules had gone haywire due to the country’s partition. One of the most interesting things he shared was how doing tragic roles repeatedly had affected him, so his counsellor advised him to do comedies, and this led to entertaining capers like Azaad, Insaaniyat and Kohinoor.
The last time I heard Kumar’s voice was courtesy my wife Anita. She had done a food feature with Banu for Sunday mid-day, and after it appeared in print, Anita spoke to an amiable Banu who asked if she would like to speak with “Saaheb” too. An overwhelmed Anita breathed “Yes!” After his protests of “Main kya baat karunga” were overruled by Banu, he came on the line and was charm personified, avuncularly blessing Anita repeatedly.
My conversations with Manoj Kumar, somehow, always include an incident related to Kumar. Manoj borrowed his screen name from Kumar’s character in Shaheed (1948) and had also directed his senior. He once told me, “Dilip saab affectionately calls me ‘Doctor saab’ and I called him ‘Haan-jiyo’ (frontier lingo). When I went to him with the script of Kranti, I told him, ‘Bogus si kahani hai, ek bahut bogus sa role hai. Mujhe lagta hai isske liye aap theek rahenge.’ After hearing the script, he said, ‘The land is fertile.’ I replied, ‘I will plough it and we will reap a rich harvest.’”
Dilip Kumar—What a rich harvest of unforgettable roles!
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