Dilip Kumar Biography – Childhood, Movies, Life Achievements & Age

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The role of prince Salim in the epic historical film of 60’s, Mughal-e-Azam has made a benchmark in the film industry. This role is played by none other than tragedy king of Bollywood aka Dilip Kumar. This veteran actor was born in QissaKhawani Bazaar area of Peshawar in the family of Lala Ghulam Sarwar, a landlord, and a fruit merchant. Mr. Sarwar has a family of 12 children and he owns orchards in Peshawar, Pakistan, and Deolali, Maharashtra, India. Later in the late 1930s, Sarwar family relocated to Bombay.

Dilip Kumar’s Peshawar House

Beginning of new chapters

Dilip Kumar was born on 11 December 1922 and his earlier name was Muhammad Yusuf Khan and did his schooling from Barnes School, Deolali. Kumar didn’t start as actor infact he didn’t even plan of B-town. The journey of his to B-town is itself a movie. At the age of 18 he had an altercation with his father, after which he left for Pune. In Pune, he met a canteen contractor with the help of an elderly Anglo-Indian couple as well as an Iranian cafe owner. Khan was a man of man of self-esteem because he got a job to manage a sandwich stall at the army club only and only on basis of his knowledge of good written and spoken English not by using his family antecedents. During this contract he saved Rs. 5000 which was quite a big amount in early 40’s. Later after the end of the contract, he headed to Bombay in order to help out his father with household finances but destiny has planned something for him.

During this chapter of his life one fine day at Churchgate Station, he met Dr. Masani, asking his company to accompany him in Bombay Talkies. The owner of BT, actress Devika Rani has signed him up on a package of Rs. 1250 per year. While working in Bombay Talkies he met actor Ashok Kumar and Sashadhar Mukherjee who became very close to him over years. Due to proficiency in Urdu language Khan used to help in the story-writing and scripting department. Later Rani requested Khan to Change his name to Dilip from Yousuf and after changing his he has been cast in 40’s Jwar Bhata as a lead character. This is how Muhammad Yusuf Khan an ordinary merchandiser’s son becomes Dilip Kumar and B-Town got his prince Saleem. After that, for two decades Kumar did much variety of genres like romantic, swashbuckling , dramatic, comical , historical and social movies such as Andaz in 1949, Aan in 1952, Devdas in 1955, Azaad in 1955, Kohinoor Mughal-e-Azam in 1960, Ganga Jamuna in 1961 etc. The movie Devdas was based on a Bengali romantic novel written by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay at the age of 17. Since the movie Mughal-e-Azam was shoot in black and white and only a few of the climax was in color so it’s fully colorized version was released in 2004. Ganga Jamuna was his first and only produced the movie. This movie also starred Vyjayanthimala, his frequent leading lady, and his brother Nasir Khan.This was the time where he established his screen name, “Tragedy King” along with various awards. In 1962 he has been offered a role of Sherif Ali by David Lean, a British director for his movie Lawrence of Arabia but Kumar declined and this offer is given to Omar Sharif, an Egyptian actor. Later Kumar released a statement the Sharif has played far better I could.

Dilip Kumar as Devdas in Devdas

As I said earlier destiny has planned something different for him. In the late 60s and early 70s his career slumped and all his movies were started failing on box office, his popularity started reducing. It was a period when he and his Raj Kapoor were not enjoying success as much they were enjoying earlier. Movies of him like Dil Diya Dard Liya have disappointed critics very much, according to them film has let them down and only positive point of the film was Pran’s performance but he still gets a nomination for Filmfare.
Therefore after spending more than two decades in film industry Kumar took a five-year break in 1976 and return with a blast with Kranti which was a multi starer movie and he playing a revolutionary freedom fighter fighting with British rule and shares the screen with Manoj Kumar, Shashi Kapoor, Hema Malini and Shatrughan Sinha. His another Bang-Bang includes Shakti, Karma and Saudagar which considered to be his last successful box office and his last big screen appearance was Qila where he played a double role.

Dilip Kumar on the set of Mughal-e-Azam

The movie karma was 80’s highest grosser in which Kumar played a role of a jailer who wants to take revenge from Doctor Dang who is an escaped terrorist and has killed his family. To accomplish his goal the jailor hires three men. Naseeruddin Shah, Jackie Shroff, and Anil Kapoor played the role of those three men while another veteran actor Anupam Kher played the role of Doctor Dang.

Dilip kumar in karma

Dilip Kumar Awards and achievements:

In his life span, Kumar received many Awards including the Guinness World Record
1. 9 Filmfare awards for best actor;
2. 19 Filmfare nominations;
3. In 1980 he also got an honorary position of Sheriff of Mumbai;
4. Padma Bhushan in 1991;
5. Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award in 1993
6. Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1994;
7. Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1994;
8. NTR National Award in 1997 by Andhra Pradesh government;
9. Nishan-e-Imtiaz by Pakistan in 1997;
10. CNN-IBN Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009;
11. Padma Vibhushan2015;
12. Guinness World Record because winning the maximum number of awards by an Indian;
13. Nominated as a member of the Rajya Sabha by Congress government for 2000-06;
14. Got his first Twitter account in 2011 on his 89th birthday.

Nishan-e-Imtiaz, is the highest civilian award in Pakistan and Kumar received this award in 1997 from the government of Pakistan but Shiv Sena, the ruling party in Maharashtra raised an objection on this by questioning his patriotism. However, in 1999 he retained his award in consultation with Atal Bihari Vajpayee who was PMO India that time.

Love life of Dilip Kumar

Many actresses like Madhubala, Vyjayanthimala, Nargis, Nimmi, Meena Kumari and Kamini Kaushal formed popular on-screen pairings with him and few of them faced many rumors as well. Actress Kamini Kaushal wife of B.S. Sood, a chief engineer in the Bombay Port Trust and her brother-in-law as well was Kumar’s first. Kumar also fell in love with his costar Madhubala but since at that time Madhu’s family was not in favor of their marriage they had to part their ways. In the lonely life of Dilip, his another co-star Vyjayanthimala also comes. The duo has given many successful films from 1955-1968 but couldn’t succeed their love life and they denied the rumors of their affair. At last, in 1966 he married to a 22 year younger actress Saira Banu with whom he also went to Mecca pilgrimage in 2013 for the first time in his life. Saira Bano is an Indian Hindi film actress and theater artist. She is a daughter of actress Naseem Banu and film producer Mian Ehsan-ul-Haq and granddaughter courtesan Chamiyan Bai. Mian sahib has produced film Phool and Wadah in Mumbai and Pakistan respectively. A significant part of her childhood was spent in London.
In 1980 he married a second time to Asma but unfortunately this couldn’t last long.

Written by Sumeet Rathi ( Freelance designer and writter)

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