Starstruck Dharmendra snuck into idol Dilip Kumar’s home 6 years before his debut: ‘Began to fancy we were siblings’
Much before he received the Filmfare expertise contest to launch his foray into the movie world, Dharmendra visited Bombay, boldly went to his idol Dilip Kumar’s home, walked in and reached proper up to his bed room solely to run away after the thespian awakened to discover a stranger in his home. Dharmendra, the enduring star who carved out a 65-year profession in Indian cinema, spanning over 300 movies, handed away in Mumbai on Monday on the age of 89. (Also Read: Dharmendra passes away stay updates right here)
When Dharmendra snuck into Dilip Kumar’s home
The attention-grabbing anecdote from someday in 1952 is mentioned intimately by Dharmendra himself within the Reminiscences part of Dilip Kumar’s autobiography, The Substance and the Shadow.
“Sometime in 1952, when I was in my second year of college, I travelled to Bombay from the small town of Ludhiana, in Punjab, where we lived. I had no definite plans of becoming an actor back then, but I definitely wanted to meet Dilip Kumar, whose acting in Shaheed had touched a deep emotional chord within me. For some inexplicable reason, I began to fancy that Dilip Kumar and I were siblings,” Dharmendra mentioned.
“The very next day I reached Bombay, I boldly went to his house in Bandra’s Pali Mala locality to meet him. I wasn’t stopped at the gate by anybody, and so I walked right into the house through the main door. There was a wooden staircase leading to a bedroom upstairs. Again, nobody stopped me, so I climbed up the stairs and stood at the entrance to one of the rooms,” he mentioned in his reminiscences.
How did Dilip Kumar react
Dharmendra recalled {that a} truthful, slim, good-looking youth was asleep on a sofa. Dilip will need to have sensed somebody’s presence and all of the sudden awakened, considerably startled, he mentioned.
“I stood still, not knowing what to do. He sat up on the couch and stared at me, quite taken aback to see a total stranger standing gingerly at his bedroom door, gazing admiringly at him,” Dharmendra mentioned.
“As for me, I couldn’t believe my eyes: It was Dilip Kumar, my idol, in front of me. He called out to a servant loudly. Now scared, I ran down the staircase and bolted out of the house, looking behind to see if I was being followed,” he mentioned.
Dharmendra mentioned that when he reached a cafeteria, he went inside and requested for a chilly lassi. “As I sat in the cafeteria and thought back to what I had done, I realised how reckless I had been by intruding into the privacy of a star. So what if there was no watchman at the gate and no family member in the house to stop me?” he recalled.
In the villages of Punjab, the homes were at all times open to anybody who cared to drop in, Dharmendra mentioned, including that there was a robust bond among the many individuals with no obstacles, and one might simply stroll into a home with none formalities and be welcome at any time of the day or evening.
(*6*) he mentioned.
When Dharmendra finally met Dilip Kumar
In his autobiography, Dharmendra additionally recalled that six years after this incident, he returned to then-Bombay to take part within the United Producers and Filmfare Talent Contest.
When he did finally meet Dileep Kumar, with the assistance of his sister Farida, Dharmendra recalled that he was referred to as over to their bungalow, 48 Pali Hill, at 8.30 pm and “time stood still” for him when “Dilip Sahab” got here out and welcomed him and gave him a chair to sit beside him on the lawns.
The Pali Hill home was not the identical one which Dharmendra had intruded years earlier. “He (Dilip Kumar) talked to me like an elder brother, full of love and concern and narrated how he became an actor and how difficult it was for him in the beginning to understand the demands of the profession since he came from a non-filmi background,” Dharmendra mentioned.
The actor recalled that he was spellbound as he listened to Dilip converse in English, Punjabi, and Urdu, his voice mushy and refined. “I just could not believe that I was actually sitting next to him and he was talking to me,” he mentioned.
When Dharmendra was leaving, Dilip took him upstairs to his room and gave him a sweater from his cabinet as a result of it was a bit chilly, and he had observed that he was sporting only a skinny cotton shirt. “He (Dilip Kumar) hugged me and saw me off at the gate. I can still feel the warmth of that hug because it was genuine,” Dharmendra mentioned.
The actor mentioned he met Dilip on many events thereafter, and it was at all times the thespian who got here in direction of him and held his hand as a result of he by no means took the freedom of going up to him as an equal. “I may not meet him (Dilip) for months, but I think of him every day because his photograph is the only photograph I have kept in my house beside the photographs of my parents and of my sons,” Dharmendra mentioned.
With inputs from PTI
