Dilip Kumar will remain live in human minds as long as movies keep exciting people. Before Independence, Dilip Kumar was born Mahammad Yusuf Khan in native Peshawar to landlord father Lala Ghulam Sarwar Ali Khan who owned fruit orchards in Peshawar and in Deolali of Nasik district of Maharashtra. The family had a flourishing fruit business in Pune those days. And since Deolali had an Army station in undivided India, the Khan family also took a small stall in the Army canteen to sell fresh and dry fruits that were in good demand. Young Yusuf was put in charge of the fruits counter.
Incidentally, Raj Kapoor’s family also had come to live in Nashik as his father Pritweeraj Kapoor, one of the doyens of Indian cinema, had set up home there. Dilip Kumar did his schooling from the Barnes School in Deolali.
Raj Kapoor was his childhood friend and they grew up together in the same cosmopolitan neighbourhood. On more than one occasion, the illustrious senior Kapoor had openly expressed his love and affection for Yusuf for being extremely organised and disciplined when Raj was considered restless and naughty.
As a teenager, Dilip Kumar had run away from home in 1940 after an argument with his father. He chose to begin life afresh as a fruit trader. In Pune, he got a job with a canteen vendor who was happy for Yusuf’s knowledge of the English language.
As he got to know more people, he set up his own sandwich stall with the help of a Parsi café owner and an elderly Anglo-Indian couple. The sandwich stall became very popular and soon he had made a whopping saving of 5,000 rupees when a kilogram of gold cost only 3,000 rupees.
In 1942, he met one Dr Masani, who was keen to assist his father in the family finances. Dr Masani, who admired Yusuf’s English, took him to the Bombay Talkies in Malad for some professional work.
Actress Devika Rani, who owned Bombay Talkies, found the Peshawar boy suave and sophisticated with a fair command over the English and Urdu languages. She enticed him to the glamour world promising him a great career. Yusuf joined the Bombay Talkies as a scriptwriter for a salary of Rs 1,250. He had imagined the salary was for a whole year. But when he came to know it was only monthly, he could not sleep in disbelief. That was a huge salary for the times. A the-then ICS officer got less than 300 rupees per month, which was also considered princely.
Around 1944, Devika Rani asked Yusuf to change his name to Dilip Kumar as she intended to shape and present him as an actor. Thus, Yusuf was gone making room for Dilip Kumar. By now, Dilip Kumar had learnt all the ways of the movie world. He was cast in the lead role in ‘Jwar Bhata’ in 1945. But he gave his first hit ‘Jugnu’ three years later in which he starred opposite Noor Jehan.
This was followed by huge hits like ‘Mela’ and ‘Shaheed’ in 1948. Dilip Kumar became the biggest star of India particularly in movies that required intense method acting. Not surprisingly, the 1950s were ruled by Dilip Kumar. ‘Andaz’ in 1949 had his childhood buddy Raj Kapoor and Nargis. Even bigger glory came with movies like ‘Jogan’, ‘Hulchul’, ‘Babul’, ‘Deedar’, ‘Naya Daur’, ‘Devdas’, ‘Daag’ and ‘Madhumati’. He remained at the top without competition for long. Because he chose his films with care, across 60 long years he acted in only 69 movies.
‘Mughal-E-Azam’ is his highest-grossing film till date on a purchase power parity basis. The film ran in big theatres for 11 years. The success streak continued with ‘Ganga Jamuna’, ‘Leader’, ‘Dil Diya Dard Liya’, ‘Ram aur Shyam’ and ‘Aadmi’.
Someone wrongly branded Dilip Kumar a tragedy king. He was superb in all his comedies like ‘Aan’, ‘Kohinoor’, ‘Azad’, ‘Gunga Jamuna’, ‘Ram aur Shyam’, ‘Gopi’ and more.
After becoming a world-famous movie star, he could afford the luxury of turning down the lead role in the Hollywood blockbuster ‘Lawrence of Arabia’. The famous director David Lean eventually chose the Egyptian superstar Omar Sharif for the role. It is not necessary to talk about great movies like ‘Devdas’ and ‘Daag’, which all Indians know too well. Dilip Kumar was the first actor to win the Filmfare Best Actor Award in 1956 for ‘Daag’.
Subsequently, he won the same award seven more times, of which four were consecutively bagged. He held record for the highest number of Filmfare Awards till Shah Rukh Khan equalled him in 2011.
He was the first actor to charge Rs 1 lakh per movie during the 1950s. His acting style was greatly influenced by actor Ashok Kumar, who he considered his guru for the latter, already a big star by 1940, told Dilip Kumar to act naturally.
Ashok Kumar was the big guy who recommended Dilip Kumar in most of the initial movies that made him big. This truth is not discussed popularly. Dilip Kumar’s films started flopping at the box office in the 1970s when his career graph saw a gradual dip with movies like ‘Dastaan’, ‘Gopi’, ‘Sagina’ and ‘Bairag’ failing to make a mark. So, he chose to take a five-year sabbatical from movies between 1976 and 1981.
He returned to the films in 1981 as character actor in ensemble movies such as ‘Kranti’, ‘Vidhaata’, ‘Shakti’, ‘Mashaal’, and ‘Dharam Adhikari’. He continued playing similar roles in ‘Kanoon Apna Apna’, ‘Saudagar’ and ‘Qila’, his last movie made in 1998.
Until date, Dilip Kumar holds the record of having bagged the maximum number of awards among all actors in India, including 10 Filmfare Awards for Best Actor, a Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award, Filmfare Special Recognition Award and 19 nominations for Filmfare Best Actor Award.
He received the Padma Bhushan in 1991, Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1994, Padma Vibhushan in 2015 and NTR National Award by the Government of Andhra Pradesh in 1997. He was also conferred Nishan-e-Imitiaz, the highest civilian award of Pakistan in 1998. He was appointed the Sheriff of Bombay by the Governor of Maharashtra for three years from 1979 to 1982. He was also nominated as a Member of the Rajya Sabha by the Indian National Congress from 2000 to 2006.
As Dilip Kumar was shy of self-praise and publicity, hardly do people know he was a avowed philanthropist. Apart from countless contributions to the poor and needy, he donated substantially for the improvement of the Bandra areas, including Bandstand Promenade and the gardens at Bandra Fort at Land’s End.
After a long battle with old age ailments, Yusuf of Peshawar, Dilip Kumar of the movie world was called away by Lord, the creator to enjoy his histrionic skills up there, so it seems!