India’s First Naturalistic Superstar News24 –
He didn’t act. He reacted. Dilip Kumar was to the acting profession what Lata Mangeshkar was to playback singing. Take them away, and what are we left with in Hindi cinema?
Born as Yusuf Khan in a family of 12 children, the future doyen of on-screen dramatics moved with his family from his native town in Peshawar to Mumbai where the Khans made a living as fruit sellers. For a brief while, Yusuf Khan even worked in an army canteen, when Devika Rani, the wife of the legendary Himanshu Rai of the Bombay Talkies studios, spotted the lanky but intense young man in a crowd.
Yusuf Khan was re-christened Dilip Kumar by Hindi litterateur Bhagwati Charan Verma. He made his debut in 1944 in Amiya Chakravarty’s Jwar Bhata where Dilip Kumar was cast as a travelling musician. Though stardom came three years later with Jugnu, Dilip Kumar was instantly recognized as India’s first naturalistic superstar. The thespian once said he was merely following the pattern set down by his idols like Paul Muni and Motilal. Like these two actors, Dilip Kumar brought a certain effortlessness into his performances that was a refreshing departure from the strenuous histrionics of his seniors and contemporaries.
For the first three years of his career, Dilip Kumar thought he was doomed. He just didn’t find himself gifted enough. He saw For Whom the Bell Tolls at four consecutive shows and was bowled over by Ingrid Bergman’s effortless performance. Thereafter, Dilip Kumar aimed for variations in his characters, performances, and dialogue delivery. To this day he believes it’s important for an actor to continue growing.
Within the first decade of his career, Dilip Kumar achieved unprecedented success as a tragic hero. Films like Anokha Pyar, Nadiya Ke Paar, Mela, Shaheed, Shabnam, Arzoo, Babul, Jogan, and Andaz immortalized Dilip Kumar. Among the three top superstars of the 1950s, Dilip Kumar had an edge over Raj Kapoor and Dev Anand. While they became stagnant in search of superstardom, Dilip Kumar just moved on in search of greener pastures so that he didn’t get typecast.
After playing the doomed lover in Bimal Roy’s Devdas, Dilip Kumar found himself faced by an acute depression. Later, he admitted that he got dangerously close to his character’s personality and had to seek psychiatric assistance. The doctor advised him to do non-serious roles for a while. From playing serious intense roles in Andaz, Mughal-e-Azam, and his home production Ganga Jumna (which he ghost-directed), Dilip Kumar went effortlessly into flippant comedy in Azad, Kohinoor, and Ram Aur Shyam. He was as successful at the grin as he was at the grim.
By the middle of the 1960s, there were no more summits for Dilip Kumar to conquer. He had done it all and was incontestably acknowledged as the best star-actor Hindi cinema had ever produced.
In the mid-60s, at the age of 44, Dilip Kumar underwent a high-profile nikaah with Saira Banu. The alliance came as a complete surprise to everyone in the film trade. Earlier, Dilip Kumar’s name had been closely linked with Madhubala. They had fallen out due to the actress’ tyrannical father’s interference. The relationship had ended with Dilip Kumar dramatically declaring in a crowded courtroom, “I shall love her until the day SHE dies.”
After marriage to Saira, who was 20 years his junior but who mothered him unabashedly, the two did several films together including Gopi, Bairaag, and Sagina. After Sagina, Dilip Kumar gave up acting for eight years. There were no challenging roles for this titanic actor. He returned to the screen with Manoj Kumar’s Kranti and later Ramesh Sippy’s Shakti, Subhash Ghai’s Vidhaata and Karma. He was immediately welcomed back.
Looking back, Yusuf Saab counted Devdas and Shikast as his “comparatively better” performances. Erudite beyond belief, Dilip Kumar was a thoroughly self-educated man who claimed to be not well-read at all. He envied an actor like Laurence Olivier who supplemented his craft with a deep understanding of literature.
Literature was never far away from Dilip Kumar’s repertoire as an actor. He played Heathcliff in the Hindi version of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (Dil Diya Dard Liya, which he ghost-directed) as well as Sarat Chandra’s classic tragic hero Devdas. After years of ghost-direction, Dilip Kumar finally turned into a director officially with the ill-fated Kalinga. The film remained incomplete.
During a career of 57 years, Dilip Kumar acted in no more than 70 films. Super-selective, he turned down Guru Dutt’s Pyaasa because the role was too similar to Devdas. Legendary directors like Bimal Roy, Amiya Chakravarty, Mehboob Khan, Subhash Ghai, and B.R. Chopra did their career’s best work with Dilip Kumar. Though he won a record number of Filmfare Awards (7 in all for Daag, Azaad, Devdas, Naya Daur, Kohinoor, Leader, Ram Aur Shyam, and Shakti), national recognition eluded him. Far from recognizing the greatest Hindi film actor, the powers-that-be accused Dilip Kumar of anti-national activity. But the pasha of performances was unperturbed.
“Nothing the authorities can give me can exceed what I already have from my audience,” he once told me.
Touché!