Dilip Kumar passes away. A few thoughts on his acting career and life

On Wednesday this week, the thespian Dilip Kumar passed away at the age of ninety-eight, bringing down the curtains on the last of the superstars of vintage Hindi cinema, those sparkling years between 1940 and 1980, when Raj Kapoor, Dev Anand, Shammi Kapoor, Rajesh Khanna, and Dilip Kumar ruled the screen. For Dilip Kumar, it was just a matter of time. He has been in and out of hospitals quite a few times in the last couple of years, and it was common knowledge he was in frail health, with only round-the-clock care managing to keep him alive. It was expected, after his death, the industry will intensely mourn his passing away as the end of an era, that Prime ministers and Presidents will put out lengthy condolence messages, that renowned actors will write emotional Twitter messages, that he will inevitably get a state funeral, and that everyone “who is who” in the Hindi film industry will face the camera with a tragic look in their eyes and praise Dilip Kumar’s work to the moon and back – even if they haven’t seen his work. All this happened as expected this Wednesday; Bollywood came to a standstill to bid goodbye to its beloved hero.

There are predominantly two types of actors. In one type of actor, given a script, a brief description of the story, and a role to essay, the actor seamlessly dissolves into the character as sugar disappears in water, without much ado or fanfare. This is raw acting talent seen in the likes of Robert de Niro, Tom hanks, Dr. Sivaji Ganesan, Amitabh Bachan, and a few others. The other type is what the Industry calls the “method” actor. The prime example of this kind of actor was Marlyn Brando. Brando prepared for each role, and often, much to the irritation of everyone around, for each shot. If he had to cry, he would request someone to emotionally abuse him, so that tears can flow more freely; if he had to play a gangster, he needed time to study a real gangster before he could act like one. To some extent, this kind of discipline is fine and perhaps necessary; but beyond a point, it betrays a lack of innate feel for a role, which should come naturally to an actor based on his or her’s keen observation of Human experience in daily life.

Dilip Kumar belonged to the second type. His performances, if one carefully observed, had a measured reticence about it always. Some would call it a dead-pan approach. Right from the days of “Devdas”, a role for which his persona suited really well, down to his last movie in the late eighties, Dilip Kumar’s range of histrionics was pretty limited, and even those roles for which he received good acclaim were studied, practiced, and never felt natural. For instance, in a 1961 blockbuster, the character Dilip Kumar played had to look tired and exhausted before he died. To achieve this effect, the actor ran around the studio multiple times to physically portray the tiredness on screen. All that a good actor had to do was to spray water on his face to feign sweat and get on with the job. But No! Dilip Kumar, being the method actor he was, had to actually “be” exhausted in order to “act” exhausted. That says a lot about the nature of acting itself.

Just a few months ago, I watched “Devdas”, the original Bimal Roy edition with Dilip Kumar playing the role of Devdas. I posted a long essay comparing Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s version with Bimal Roy’s on Facebook, and in my conclusion, I said that I found the former better. Of course, there is no comparison in budget and the era in which each one was made, but somehow, the tragic story of Devdas seemed more poignant in Bhansali’s version than Roy’s. To a large extent, the reason I liked Bhansali’s movie is that Shah Rukh was able to bring out the madness and devil in Dev’s characters much better than Dilip Kumar could.

All said and done, setting aside my personal opinion of Dilip Kumar’s talent, there is no doubt he was a superstar during his times. Never wanting to become an actor, becoming one by sheer chance in the early 1940s, Dilip Kumar made the best use of the opportunity life gave him. Changing his name from Yusuf Khan to Dilip Kumar suited the emotional ethos of the times. During his younger days, Dilip Kumar was a handsome man, with a chiseled face, dark-set eyes, and a hint of mystery in his demeanor. In a career spanning decades, he carved a space for himself in Indian cinema, never compromising on the choice of his roles or the acting style. Producers made a beeline to his door, knowing that a film with his name on the poster cannot fail to rake in the money. He did essay many memorable roles, included the troubled Jahangir in Mughal e Azham, once again that dead-pan look and measured monologues working to his advantage. The Government of India graced him with all possible national accolades, prompting Pakistan to follow suit with its own national honors. There was great pressure on Dilip to refuse and return the award to Pakistan, but he didn’t, citing reasons of peace and amity, much to the chagrin of Hardcore Hindu nationalists.

On the whole, Dilip Kumar led a rich life. I wouldn’t rank him as a talented actor, but he definitely could play a certain type of persona to perfection. And fortunately, most of his roles demanded just that from him. Dilip couldn’t have asked for more.

God bless…

yours in mortality,

Bala