& çâÌæÚUæð´ ·¤è ¥ôÚU Îð¹Ùæ ÁæÚUè ÚU¹ð´ ¥ÍæüÌ ¥ÂÙð ÜÿØ ÂÚU ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´Ð ãæÚU Ù ×æÙð´, €UØô´ç·¤ ·¤æ× ·¤ÚUÙð âð ¥æÂ·¤ô ©gðàØ ·¤è Âýæç# ãôÌè ãñ ¥õÚU ÁèßÙ ·¤æ ¹æÜèÂÙ ÎêÚU ãôÌæ ãñÐ ÖÜð ãè ÁèßÙ ×ð´ ç·¤ÌÙè Öè ·¤çÆÙæ§ü €UØô´ Ù ¥æ°, çÁ™ææâæ ¥õÚU ©ˆâæã ÕÙæ° ÚU¹ð´Ð ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´, ÜÿØ ã×ðàææ ¥æÂ·Ô¤ Âæâ ãôÌð ãñ´ çÁ‹ãð´ ÂæÙð ·Ô¤ çÜ° ÂýØæâ ¥æÂ ·¤Öè Öè àæéM¤ ·¤ÚU â·¤Ìð ãñ´Ð

The making of a legend
ONE of Dilip Kumar's earliest childhood memories is of discovering himself beside the bodies of three young Pathans killed in a war of the clans. It was in his native Peshawar and Yousuf Khan, the yet to be famous actor, had trailed his mother to the neighbouring house where she had gone to offer her sympathies to the bereaved family. No one had noticed him in the room. Someone had locked it from inside and did not open it until a British colonial police officer turned up to inquire into the incident.
The incident, apart from its macabre aspect, was to be seen as a sign of the devotion in which Dilip Kumar would always hold his mother. He would follow her all over the house, one that had a good number of brothers and sisters. Throughout this very readable autobiography, the thespian's love for his mother, the depths to which he keeps missing her, comes through. With his father, Mohammad Sarwar Khan, the relationship was more formal, a hint of what generally happens to subcontinental children when they deal with their fathers. Closeness is largely an association with mothers.
The Substance and the Shadow gives you, for surely the very first time; the real Dilip Kumar in the sense that he not only details the long life he has lived but also clears some of the many misconceptions that have for years been aired about his life. He recalls the old home in Peshawar's Kissa Khwani Bazar and speaks movingly of mountains in their majesty and the freshness of the air, the varied fruits of which land his father made an economic enterprise of. The move to Bombay by the family in the interest of having the fruit business expand is narrated in minute detail. In the process, a teenaged Yousuf Khan shines. He carries romantic notes from his elder brother to a neighbouring girl, who rewards him with goodies to eat. For himself, he remains shy and especially in the company of women. It is shyness that will stay with him for long.
As a young man, Dilip Kumar once walked out of the family home after an altercation with his father. He refrains from informing the reader about the exact nature of the incident, save only to mention the deep hurt it caused him. Landing up in Poona, he quickly finds a job at the army canteen, which is frequented by English officers of the British India army. His manners and skill in preparing such eatables as sandwiches endears him to the officers. His flawless English surprises them and naturally makes them happy. For Dilip, though, there comes a day of shock when he goes to his room, to find a fully nude young English woman he thought was enamoured of a young British officer. He runs off to call the manager, but when they come back, the girl is gone. Moments later, she is spotted, stark naked, at the swimming pool.
The Substance and the Shadow is an elaborate enumeration of the manner in which Devika Rani of Bombay Talkies fame drew Yousuf Khan into the world of the cinema. She it was who suggested that he adopt the name Dilip Kumar. Initially hesitant, he eventually went by Devika Rani's advice. It was to become a famous name. But the way to fame would be long. Dilip's good fortune was that he came in touch with such established artistes as Ashok Kumar, whom he always addresses as Ashok Bhaiyya in the book. There were also Prithviraj Kapoor and his son Raj Kapoor, Pathans like Dilip Kumar's family. Prithviraj, later to be Emperor Akbar to Dilip's Prince Salim in Mughal-e-Azam, was a friend of his father's. And Raj Kapoor went to college with Dilip Kumar.
There are all the anecdotes that the actor throws along the way. The actor Mohammd Umar Mukri, who had been known to Dilip since their young, non-movie days, once made the mistake of entering the actress Nadira's hotel room at night, imagining it to be Dilip's. Nadira’s expletives, accompanied by screams, set Mukri scampering off. And Vyjayantimala was always accompanied on the sets by her grandmother, who had her consume large quantities of fruit and milk during breaks in shooting. Dilip and the others on the set wondered where all that milk Vyjayantimala drank actually went.
And then came the day when Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, on a visit to Madras, sent out word that he would visit the cast of Paigham then shooting in the city. That set Yadugiri Devi, Vyjayantimala's grandmother, talking. As she related the story, at an occasion in Delhi, Nehru and Papa (the word, meaning baby in Tamil and used for Vyjayantimala by her grandmother) were present. Vyajayanti was, of course, centre-stage. Dilip, asked by S.S. Vasan, owner of Gemini Studios, to head the reception line that would receive the prime minister, responded that since Vyjayantimala knew Nehru, she should do that job. When Nehru arrived, he ignored Vyjayantimala and, seeing Dilip Kumar, strode over to him. 'Yousuf, he said loudly, T heard you were here and I decided to drop in.'
As Dilip Kumar tells it, 'After that, we never heard the Panditji-Papa story from Vyjayanti's grandmother.'
The thespian's reflections on Madhubala provide the details of how their relationship did not work out. Dilip lays the blame squarely on Madhubala's father who he thinks was more concerned with making money out of a marriage between his daughter and the actor. Dilip was surprised at Madhubala’s silence, indeed her seeming agreement with her father. Observe Dilip Kumar dwell on the situation:
'Contrary to popular notions, her father, Ataullah Khan, was not opposed to her marrying me. He had his own production company and he was only too glad to have two stars under the same roof. Had I not seen the whole business from my point of view, it would have been just what he wanted, that is, Dilip Kumar and Madhubala holding hands and singing duets in his productions till the end of our careers.'
That was a forthright Dilip Kumar, who would go on to marry the actress Saira Bano in 1966. He was forty four and she was twenty two. Throughout the book, Dilip gushes over Saira. Simply put, he goes overboard in his praises of her, in his assessment of her as both an artiste and a wife. And yet there remains the truth of how, years after his marriage, he secretly met Asma Rehman, ended up marrying her and then, once the secret was revealed and Saira Bano had taken him to task, gone ahead and divorced Asma. Dilip's account of the whole affair sounds unconvincing, given especially his clear propensity to pin the blame for the fiasco on Asma Rehman who, he says, had a husband when she met him. Here is the way he puts it:
'Well, the one episode in my life that I would like to forget and which we, Saira and I, have indeed pushed into eternal oblivion is a grave mistake I made under pressure of getting involved with a lady named Asma Rehman whom I had met at a cricket match in Hyderabad (Andhra Pradesh) where she
then lived with her husband. She was a mother of three when she was introduced to me as a fan...
.. .In this case, however, I was completely unaware of a connivance that was being mischievously perpetuated and a situation being cleverly created by vested interests to draw a commitment horn me ... my wife Saira stood by me when I admitted the grave mistake and asked her to give me some time to undo the wrong through proper legal processes and restore the sanctity of our marriage of sixteen years ... as a human being, I was not infallible and I became a victim of a situation that was set to precipitate a deep crisis in my marriage with Saira.'
That blunder apart, The Substance and the Shadow is the story of a humble young Pathan, who his father had thought would come by an OBE someday, striking out on a path not many Pathans look upon with equanimity. Dilip Kumar has been a good family man, having acted as a parent to his siblings following the death of his father, whom he called Aghaji, and his mother. He is well-read and speaks a number of languages — Urdu, Pushto, Punjabi, English and others — fluently.
Long years ago, when a beggar — a fakir — saw him at his childhood home in Peshawar, he told his grandmother to keep him away from the evil eye because he was destined to make his mark in the world. The prophecy was to be fulfilled. Yousuf Khan would become the legend Dilip Kumar.