The Indian Panorama

Tag: Dilip Kumar

  • How Yusuf Khan became Dilip Kumar

    How Yusuf Khan became Dilip Kumar

    Legend, thespian, tragedy king, god of acting… Dilip Kumar was given several monikers in his illustrious career but how he acquired his screen name is a story unto itself. He was born Mohammed Yusuf Khan but Devika Rani, who was head of the Bombay Talkies where he joined as an actor, wasn’t too happy with the name. Dilip Kumar, she thought, would be in tune with his “romantic image” which he was bound to acquire and would also have a “secular appeal”.

    And so Dilip Kumar it was. Kumar, who died  at the age of 98, narrates in detail how he went from being Yusuf Khan to Dilip Kumar in his autobiography “The Substance and the Shadow”. “One morning, as I entered the studio I was given the message that Devika Rani wanted to see me in her office. I wondered what it could be. I was certain it couldn’t be for expressing any displeasure because she was always courteous and pleasant whenever she met me and enquired how I was doing. So what could it be?” Kumar writes. When he walked into Rani’s office, she was seated at her desk, smiled warmly and asked him to sit down.

    Devika Rani began the conversation with the usual courtesy of asking him whether he would care for some tea made specially for her from leaves she had purchased from an English store in the city, he recounts in great detail.

    According to the autobiography, she soon came to the point and said quite matter-of-factly, “Yusuf, I was thinking about your launch soon as an actor and I felt it would not be a bad idea if you adopted a screen name”.

    “You know, a name you would be known by and which will be very appropriate for your audience to relate to and one that will be in tune with the romantic image you are bound to acquire through your screen presence. I thought Dilip Kumar was a nice name,” she is quoted as saying. She told him the name just “popped up” in her mind when she was thinking about a suitable name for him.“How does it sound to you?” she asked.

    “I was speechless for a moment, being totally unprepared for the new identity she was proposing to me. I said it sounded nice but asked her whether it was really necessary,” Kumar says in the book.

    “She gave her sweet smile and told me that it would be prudent to do so. She added that it was after considerable thought that she came to the conclusion of giving me a screen name.”

    Rani told Kumar that she foresaw a long and successful career for him in films and it made good sense to have a screen identity that would “stand up by itself and have a secular appeal”.

    Kumar was quick to appreciate her concern, but added that he needed to think about it a bit.

    She responded, “Fine… come back to me with your thoughts.

    “We are now ready to begin preparations for your debut. So we must hurry up.”

    The actor recalls spending the rest of the day, going about his routine, but with the name ‘Dilip Kumar’ ringing in his mind”s inner recesses.

    1. Mukherjee, who was effectively the second in command at Bombay Talkies after Devika Rani, noticed that the actor was rather contemplative that afternoon.

    After lunch, when work started on the shooting stage, Mukherjee asked him if there was something disturbing him and if he could share with him.

    “I told S. Mukherjee Sahab about the suggestion that had come from Devika Rani. He reflected for a second and, looking me straight in the eye, said: ”I think she has a point. It will be in your interest to take the name she has suggested for the screen. It is a very nice name, though I will always know you by the name Yusuf like all your brothers and sisters and your parents,” says Kumar in the autobiography.

    Kumar said he was touched by what Mukherjee said and it was a validation that cleared his thoughts then and there.

    The rest as they say is history. Dilip Kumar went on to debut with Jwar Bhata in 1944, becoming one of the biggest names in Indian cinema history.

  • Dilip Kumar, movie icon and acting institution, passes away at 98

    Dilip Kumar, movie icon and acting institution, passes away at 98

    Murtaza Ali Khan

    Cinema legend Dilip Kumar has passed away at the age of 98, following prolonged illness. He is survived by his wife, actor Saira Banu.

    Immediately after the news broke out on Wednesday , July 7, morning, heartfelt tributes from all across the globe started pouring in, as Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray announced a state funeral for the Bollywood legend.

    Born Mohammed Yusuf Khan in 1922 in Peshawar, now in Pakistan, he became known to the world by the screen name of Dilip Kumar once he joined the Hindi film industry in the 1940s.The original king of tragedy who’s revered the world over for his iconic screen performances in films such as Devdas (1955), Naya Daur (1957), Mughal-e-Azam (1960), Ganga Jamuna (1961), Ram Aur Shayam (1967), Sagina Mahato (1970), Kranti (1981), Shakti (1982), Karma (1986), and Saudagar (1991) was laid to rest at the Juhu Qabrastan in Santacruz Mumbai. Dilip Sahab was draped in the tricolor, given a gun salute after which band of police personnel paid him their tribute. The funeral was completed with COVID restrictions in place as only family and close friends were allowed to attend it. Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan was among the few B-town celebs who attended the funeral.

    There was a time when young people hailing from good families couldn’t dream of taking up acting as a profession. For, the profession was looked down upon. But, Dilip Sahab not only brought dignity to the profession but also inspired numerous young men and women to follow his footsteps and become legendary figures in their own right. He was a method actor long before the movie stars in the West even knew what it actually meant to be a method actor. In fact, he was so deeply involved into his roles that he had to consult a psychologist who advised him to avoid doing serious roles to keep his sanity intact. That’s precisely why he had to turn down Pyaasa (1957).

    But, he was able to soon turn the tide by successfully playing rather light hearted characters which allowed him to further diversify himself as a performer. He famously turned down David Lean’s offer to play Sherif Ali in Lawrence of Arabia (1962) in order to focus on his work in Hindi cinema. A truly consummate actor, Dilip Kumar took on Amitabh Bachchan at the height of his fame in ‘Shakti’ and yet again came out supreme, winning the Filmfare Award for Best Actor in 1983. He subsequently went on to play pivotal roles in films like Mashaal (1984), Karma (1986), and Saudagar (1991). The 1998 film Qila was his last film.

    As a performer, Dilip Sahab was always ahead of his time and never backed down from new challenges. In the 1954 film titled ‘Amar’, he played the central character of a lawyer named Amarnath who is known for his sense of justice. Now, as per his father’s wish Amarnath agrees to marry Anju (essayed by Madhubala) who is a Western educated girl and quite open minded. But on one rainy night he gets enticed by a milkwoman’s beauty and is unable to stop himself from raping her. Try and imagine Dilip Kumar, a heartthrob of the nation, in a newly independent India of the early 1950s, raping a girl on the silver screen. Of course, the act of rape isn’t shown but merely implied symbolically via the shattering of the window pane.

    Now, any other actor in his place would have refused to do the scene. It was really too much for the ’50s but Dilip Kumar seldom backed down from challenges. He went ahead with it once he was convinced that the story demanded it. Moreover, there would be repercussions for Amarnath which would ensure that the scene isn’t misinterpreted by the audiences. Clearly, even as early as the ’40s and ’50s, Dilip Sahab was a trailblazer who was constantly pushing the boundaries of acting and setting up new standards with each new performance. By the ’70s, he attained the stature of an acting institution that has continued to inspire generations of artists. His death truly marks the end of an era. For, there will never be another Dilip Kumar. To quote Amitabh Bachchan: “An epic era has drawn curtains… Never to happen again.”

                    (Murtaza Ali Khan is an Indian Film & TV Critic / Journalist who has been covering the world of entertainment for over 10 years. He tweets at @MurtazaCritic and can be mailed at: murtaza@apotpourriofvestiges.com. His video essays / commentaries can be watched on his YouTube Channel at: https://www.youtube.com/c/murtaza19alikhan).

    Dilip Kumar only Indian actor to receive highest Pak honor

    Dilip Kumar’s ancestral home, where he was born and spent his early days, recently made it to the news, for the Pakistani Government wished to buy it and turn it into a museum, along with Raj Kapoor’s ancestral property. The house, located in the Qissa Khawani Bazaar of Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, is more than 100 years old, and has been declared a national heritage of Pakistan. Raj Kapoor was not only Dilip Kumar’s contemporary. Their association goes back to living in neigbouring “havelis”, being schoolmates and studying in the same college (Khalsa College). And, evidently, it was Raj Kapoor who first told Dilip that he could be a star.

    When Dilip’s father, Lala Ghulam Sarwar Khan, came to know of his career switch from fruit trader to film actor, Raj, as a true friend, came to his rescue and made his father, Prithviraj Kapoor, reason with him.

    The only Indian actor to receive Pakistan’s highest civilian award, Nishan-e-Imtiaz in 1998, Dilip Kumar was later pressurised to return the honour during the 1999 Kargil war by then coalition government of Shiv Sena in Maharashtra.

    He had thought that the protests outside his house would die down soon, but when they didn’t, he met then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who intervened.

    “There’s no doubt about Dilip’s patriotism and commitment to the nation. He has proved that time and again during his film career. He has received the award at an individual level. It’s his will to keep it or return it. No one can pressurise him,” Vajpayee had said.

    It was revealed later that in a letter that Dilip Kumar wrote to arrange a meeting with Vajpayee, he mentioned that if returning the award was in the best interests of the nation, he would gladly do so.

    Former Foreign Minister of Pakistan, Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri described Dilip as the “one who could bring India and Pakistan together” in his book titled “Neither a Hawk nor a Dove”.

    Dilip’s picture greeting Abdul Ghaffar Khan, the independence activist, advocate of Hindu-Muslim unity, who was against partition, on his visit to India at Meenambakkam Airport, Chennai, bears witness of him being the figure of peace throughout his life.         Source: TNS

  • Legendary Indian actor Dilip Kumar has died at 98

    Legendary Indian actor Dilip Kumar has died at 98

    I.S. Saluja

    MUMBAI (TIP): Dilip Kumar, the Bollywood icon, hailed as the “Tragedy King” and one of Hindi cinema’s greatest actors, died Wednesday, July 7, in a Mumbai hospital after a prolonged illness. He was 98. “Dilip Kumar will be remembered as a cinematic legend. He was blessed with unparalleled brilliance, due to which audiences across generations were enthralled. His passing away is a loss to our cultural world,” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a tweet.

    “An institution has gone,” Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan tweeted. “Whenever the history of Indian Cinema will be written, it shall always be ‘before Dilip Kumar, and after Dilip Kumar’.”

  • Goodbye, Dilip Kumar

    Goodbye, Dilip Kumar

    The passing of Dilip Kumar, the king of melancholia on the silver screen, signals the final break from the early days of Hindi film ‘talkies’, when actors were beginning to shed the exaggerated theatricality of stage drama and learning to love the camera. In the 1930s and 1940s, Ashok Kumar, Motilal Rajvansh and Balraj Sahni were among the handful of actors taking pioneering steps towards natural, realistic acting. They were eschewing the preceding style that — with its hand-waving, over the top gestures and facial expressions — seemed affected and artificial. Then came Dilip Kumar, the Pathan from Peshawar, who went a step further, deep into the skin of the character he was playing. He didn’t make a mark in his earliest movies, but collaborating with Nitin Bose in 1946 proved a turning point. He began to develop the finer nuances of his craft and, in his own words, ‘evolved a method’ — a method actor without training.

    Through the 1940s to 1960s, in a newly-independent country brimming with hope but grappling with new challenges, Dilip Kumar played an impressive range of characters — a dapper young man in Andaz, a farmer in Mela and Naya Daur, an unbounded adventurer in Azaad and Kohinoor, the prince in Mughal-e-Azam, a dacoit in Ganga Jamuna. But the role that epitomized his ‘Tragedy King’ persona was as Devdas in Bimal Roy’s film of the same name in 1955. Deep-diving into tragic characters caused him to be depressed, and the light-hearted, swashbuckling roles he played in the mid-1950s were part of efforts to cheer his spirits.

    By the 1970s, with Dilip Kumar in his 50s, his charm as the leading man began to fade and he made an impressive transition into character roles — the most memorable role of this phase was as a police officer in Shakti (1982), in which he is clearly the giant among Amitabh Bachchan, Smita Patil and Kulbhushan Kharbanda. His brooding style, however, began to seem dated by the time he did his final films. He long outlived his two foremost rivals and friends, Raj Kapoor and Dev Anand — but at 98, it is time for the finest actor of his time to take the final bow.

    (Tribune India)

  • Pakistan govt to convert Havelis of Raj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar into museums

    Pakistan govt to convert Havelis of Raj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar into museums

     peshawar (TIP): The ancestral homes in Peshawar of Bollywood legends Dilip Kumar and Raj Kapoor are now owned by the Pakistan’s local government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, and will be converted into museums.

    According to Pakistani media, ownership of both properties has been transferred to the director of KP’s archaeology and museum department, the Peshawar deputy commissioner announced. Raj Kapoor’s home was constructed by Deewan Basheswarnath, the actor’s grandfather, between 1918-1922. He was a police officer in British India. Though from today’s Faisalabad in Pakistan, he remained posted in Peshawar for quite some time.

    Prithviraj Kapoor, Basheswarnath’s son, was one of Hindi cinema’s first big stars. After making a name for himself in local plays, he moved on to Mumbai in the late 1920s for greener pastures.

    Raj Kapoor was born on 14 December 1924 in the same house. Shakeel Waheedullah, head of the Cultural Heritage Council of Peshawar, said the family of the legendary actor returned to the house a few times before partition to sell it.

    Dilip Kumar was born Muhammed Yusuf Khan in 1911. His house was built by his father, who was a fruit merchant. Waheedullah said that financial losses forced his father to migrate to Mumbai, where the family looked to accomplish more. Kumar’s father sold his house in Peshawar in 1930 for a sum of Rs. 5,000. Since then, it has been sold various times and is currently being used as a warehouse.

    Last year, the veteran actor had expressed his gratitude in a tweet to a Pakistani journalist, asking his fans in Pakistan to send him pictures of his ancestral home.

    His tweet said: “Thank you for sharing this. Requesting all in #Peshawar to share photos of my ancestral house.” The KP Archaeology and Museums Director Abdul Samad said that the government would start restoration and rehabilitation of both badly damaged properties, before turning them into museums. He added that the directorate would also contact members of both families regarding the restoration work.

    “In the past, only announcements were made, but no practical steps were taken but the current government took possession of the houses after completing all legal procedures,” Samad told the News. He added that the next step is to restore the two houses to their original condition and convert them into museums for which funds are available.

    According to the government, Dilip Kumar’s house was valued at Rs8.56 million in Pakistani currency while Raj Kapoor’s home was valued at Rs10.5 million.

    But Haji Lal Mohammad, the owner of Dilip Kumar’s ancestral house, had refused to sell the house for Rs 8 million. He had demanded a minimum value of Rs 250 million for the property. Similarly, the owner of Raj Kapoor’s ancestral mansion had also refused to sell the house for Rs 10 million fixed by the local administration. Ali Qadir had demanded Rs. 2 billion for the historic mansion. — IANS

    Myanmar military court sentences two journalists to jail Bangkok (TIP): A military court in Myanmar has sentenced two journalists to two years in prison for their reporting, a move that has been decried by rights groups as the latest assault on the free press since the country’s coup.

    Aung Kyaw, 31, a reporter for the Democratic Voice of Burma, and Zaw Zaw, 38, a freelance reporter for the online news agency Mizzima, were convicted on June 3 by the court in Myeik, a city in southern Myanmar.

    The two had been charged under a recently revised provision in the penal code with spreading misinformation that could incite unrest, a charge that critics say criminalises free speech.

    The convictions are the latest moves against journalists since Myanmar’s military overthrew the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in a February coup. According to Myanmar’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, about 90 journalists have been arrested since the takeover, with more than half still in detention, and 33 still in hiding. The coup sparked massive civilian protests against military rule that have been met with a brutal crackdown that has left hundreds dead.

    The Democratic Voice of Burma and Mizzima are among five local media outlets that were banned in March from broadcasting or publishing after their licenses were cancelled. Like many other banned media outlets, both have continued operating.

    A statement issued by the Democratic Voice of Burma said Aung Kyaw was arrested March 1 for reporting about anti-junta demonstrations in Myeik.

    A statement from Mizzima said Zaw Zaw was detained about two months ago at his home while covering events for them in Myeik and Dawei, also in southern Myanmar.

    The news agency said it “categorically opposes the two-year prison sentence handed to Zaw Zaw and calls for the immediate release of all journalists unjustly detained by the ruling junta, including Zaw Zaw and another four detained Mizzima journalists”.

    “Mizzima firmly believes that journalism and the right to freedom of expression is not a crime and that Mizzima and all independent Myanmar media outlets should be allowed to freely function in Myanmar,” the statement said. Family members of both reporters were not allowed to attend their hearing at the military court, but were allowed to talk to them by phone for a few minutes after being sentenced. During their call, Aung Kyaw told his wife to tell the media that he would not appeal because he no longer believed in the law under military rule. AP