The Last Mughal

Dilip Kumar's Realism And Brooding Screen Persona Had A Seminal Influence On Generations Of Actors To Come

- Avijit Ghosh

Dilip Kumar’s best encapsulated the finest in popular cinema. Secure in his craft, he acted only in 60-odd films in a career spanning more than five decades. Kumar, whose real name was Yusuf Khan, even refused the part that made Omar Sharif a Hollywood star in David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia.

His brooding intensity and comic flair influenced Bollywood A-listers such as Rajendra Kumar, Manoj Kumar and Amitabh Bachchan. An obsessive perfectionist, he learnt to play the sitar for a song sequence in Kohinoor. Kumar was so immersed in the self-destructive protagonist of Devdas (1955) that he had to undergo psychiatric counselling. The doctor advised comedies as therapy. And he excelled in them too.

In the pre-independence era, Pramathesh Barua and KL Saigal had swayed a million hearts as Devdas. Yet a generation later Dilip Kumar made the part his own. He induced intensity into loving and losing in a way that pain became indistinguishable from pleasure.

His most-remembered performances had distinct tragic undertones. As a conflicted prince who rebels against his father, the emperor, for the woman he loves, Kumar was starch-perfect with his diction in Mughal-e-Azam. A scene with Madhubala, where he fondles her face with a peacock feather, is iconic for its eroticism.

A notable moment in his career came with Ganga Jumna (1961) where he conveyed the despair of the innocent villager forced to become an outlaw. “To me, it was his ultimate performance,” Amitabh Bachchan told TOI in 1990. Ironically, the Censor Board recommended major cuts to it on grounds of vulgarity and violence. The film was released following Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s intervention. But the struggle to get it exhibited took its toll on him. He never produced a film again.