Dilip Kumar named Dilsoz Colony in our area, and it has stayed so.

inam ul rehman

 

The first time I heard the name of Dilip Kumar was in the early 90s when my father mentioned to me that the name of our adjacent Dilsoz Colony was kept by the former when he used to frequently visit the Valley. At the time I had no interest in him. 

 

I was puzzled why of all actors Dilip Kumar’s name of the colony stuck with the people.  Those days Doordarshan used to telecast classic Bollywood movies once a weeknight. As a teen, I had no interest in black and white movies which langured on. But the puzzle of why Dilip’s name stuck with the place made me uncomfortable.  Internet was not yet to be midwifed, google was in clouds, and the only source was books. But a school-going kid reading books on film stars was taboo. 

 

So, I started to read magazines, particularly Urdu film magazines and there was plenty written on him. His film Saudagar was then a runaway success, Urdu magazines went over the top to praise his acting prowess at the age of 70. I realised that the Urdu magazines were always putting him on the highest pedestal! I also came to know that his real name is Yusuf Khan. His being a Muslim may have been one of the strong reasons why the people of Kashmir liked him, and why the name of Dilsoz Colony stuck on the tongues of the people. 

 

Then I watched late-night Bollywood classic Daag at my uncle’s home, (it was a time of the early 90s when we used to move to our Uncle’s home because of encounters, and fear of paramilitary troops frequently searching homes) followed by Yahudi, Azaad, Aan, Mughal-e-Azam, Madhumati, Ganga Jamuna, and many more. Later Doordarshan started to broadcast movies daily on afternoons. It was a chance to watch Raj Kapoor, Dev Anand, Shami Kapoor, Sanjeev Kumar, et al. As I watched Dilip and his contemporaries I noticed he uses silence as his strong point, his eyes were expressive, was adept at dancing wearing a dhoti, he was the character in his movies, not the actor, songs in his films were not catchy unlike Shami Kapoor, Raj Kapoor, or Dev Anand. But strangely couldn’t watch Devdas, because I thought it was too gloomy. The strength, as I realised, of his films was Dilip Kumar.  

After watching his movies, I developed interest to see what was then called “art/parallel cinema”. I began to see Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Smita Patil, Shabana Azami, Deepti Naval, Farooq Sheikh, Pankaj Kapoor, Pawan Malhotra, Amol Palekar, Nana Patekar, et al, all on DD. 

Then in 2002, Shahrukh Khan’s Devdas was released. I didn’t watch it either. Many critics panned Shahrukh and rightly so for his ham performance in Devdas. As a student of mass communication and journalism at the University of Kashmir in 2003, one of our senior’s submitted his student dissertation on “Devdas vs Devdas”, it sparked an interest to watch both movies.  I decided first to watch Devdas of Dilip. The artisan that he was Dilip looked every bit the character. His character of forlorn, doomed, and self-destructive lover was perhaps possible for him to play because he had experienced it in his life. He was in love with Kamini Kaushala, but she married her brother-in-law following the death of her sister.  Anyways, Devdas of Dilip is unmatched. Both he and Suchitra Sen are exceptional in the movie. Shahrukh on the other hand was loud, exaggerated, and never the character but every bit the star.   Devdas was the apogee of his acting, although Ganga Jamuna is considered his pinnacle.

 

 After that Dilip became redundant. But he returned. 

 

This time as the central character of all movies starting with Kranti. His show off with the then reigning superstar Amitabh Bachchan in Shakti movie once again reinforced that Dilip is not only the star but the actor as well. Like almost in all films here also he overshadowed Amitabh Bachchan. To his credit, Amitabh also held his own in front of the regal acting of his co-star. Shabir Mujhaid, a former producer at the DD Kendra Srinagar, once told in a gathering that during an interview with Raj Kapoor he asked him about his contemporary actors to which Raj Kapoor said that he believes that except Yousuf Saeb all have stagnated.    

 

One can say his acting was class, films were meaningful, essayed the characters which were politically progressive. His élan, grace, grip, and ebullience were unmatched. You can’t find both the star and the actor in the same person in Bollywood except Dilip Kumar.   

                        

Image courtesy: Filmfare