I pray for Dilip Kumar's health

A date with tragedy king*

(*Published in HT & The Tribune)

By: Rajbir Deswal
During my school days I saw Dilip Kumar’s “Paigham”, a Gemini production, thrice and he became my beau ideal for the rest of my life. I would not let go a Dilip Kumar movie without being seen anywhere around till my college and university days. All my life I have remained a great fan to him. In 1979, when I was a sub-editor in a weekly in Delhi, I was finally able to grab an opportunity of talking to him.
I met him at his bungalow in Mumbai last June and spent about a couple of hours with him. The discussion took off with the mention of “Musafir”. In London, way back in 1992, I was able to procure a video cassette of “Musafir”.
Dilip Kumar, also called reverentially by his original name Yusuf Bhai by his intimate friends and admirers, evinced keen interest in me, looking at me with his deep, probing eyes. I moved on to “Paigham” and Dilip Kumar’s pairing with Raj Kumar as also that the movie, seen thrice in my childhood, was still fresh in my mind.
And when I, purposely though to open up the maestro, recalled his “Insaniyat” with Dev Anand and “Andaaz” with Raj Kapoor, Dilip Sahib instantaneously manoeuvred an expression of compassion and gratitude in his observing eyes and said, “I never knew I had admirers in a state like Haryana too.”
The rest of one and a half hours with Dilip Kumar was virtually a treat.
“Yes, those were the days....!” In Musafir” Bimal and Rishi counselled and desired it, to be a happy ending plot with Dilip Kumar dying...!” He laughed with a jerk when I intervened. “But the perfection with which your fingers dance d on the violin chords was superb”.
Acknowledging the compliment, Dilip Sahib reverted back to “Musafir” and his “dying”, “I don’t know in how many ways I have died in the Hindi films. Now it occurs to me that I have exhausted all modes to die in a film.” He again laughed and added, “it was in a light comedy, ‘Azad’, in which I didn’t die. People in the film industry started talking about then that Dilip Kumar had had his funeral’ obviously they thought if I would not die I would do a comedy film and I would be ‘finished’.”
Here entered Captain Baig, a pilot-friend of Dilip Kumar, “He has the rarest distinction of flying a plane even after having a bypass surgery,” he turned to a blend of the mundane and the philosophical undercurrents of modern life.
“Look how poorer have we been rendered in time. You start with supersonic speed from London to meet your son in New York and then you are in so much of a hurry to rush back. Your being with your son, at such a speed, does not afford you enough time to sit and chat with him.”
Here Dilip Sahib was all praise for a train journey of yesteryear when he produced the sound and imitated, “Those slow-moving trains had much solace to offer with their kha-rang-tang-kharang-tang, and if a tunnel would approach it, he would add a shatak-shatak note. If the train was going over a bridge then trong-tong-trong-tong would resonate, making the train journey an enjoyable experience. But Captain Baig...!” Dilip Kumar laughed, and we laughed at his imitating the train.
Raj Kiran, a film star, joined at this juncture and Dilip Sahib introduced him and asked him to be seated. He would only bow to him and keep standing with a file in hand. They exchanged some notes quietly and Dilip Sahib joined us back. I reminded him of his interviewing Noorjahan on television some years back. With a strange flash of smile on his lips and almost being nostalgic he recollected the melodies of olden days.
First he hummed and then started singing. “Uthaye ja unke sitam aur jiyeja; yuhin muskurayeja, aansu piyeja.” And prolonging and accentuating the notation wherever needed to render it very sweetly, Dilip Sahib did so and said “You know these days they have those Tara-Rara’s and Na-na-na-na-na-re, na-re only. The other day Lata Behan was telling me—Aaj kal hum koi gane gate those hain, ugaltey hain,”.
Suddenly, he rose and took us to his nicely maintained green backyard. But he was disappointed because the buildings near his bungalow were coming up, “blowing to winds all norms”. Here we had a brief photo-session with Dilip Sahib guiding us as to what would be the most suitable angle for natural sunlight available on the face.