“He Never Made Me Feel Small,” Says Waheeda Rehman In Fond Remembrance Of Dilip Kumar. Rest In Peace, Legend.

“He Never Made Me Feel Small,” Says Waheeda Rehman In Fond Remembrance Of Dilip Kumar. Rest In Peace, Legend.

In my home, we had three generations who loved three different superstars that reigned over Bollywood and ushered in their own eras of glorious cinema. My late grandfather was huge Dilip Kumar fan; my father loved Amitabh Bachchan; and I was madly in love with Shah Rukh Khan. And while our opinions might’ve clashed over how much we liked or disliked the latter two, there was always a consensus that Dilip Kumar was the G.O.A.T. Because every actor in Bollywood has borrowed something of the thespian’s art, mannerism to build themselves up on screen. Today, on Dilip Kumar’s passing at the age of 98, it truly is the end of an era. Those like Waheeda Rehman, who had the honour of sharing screen space with the legend have filled spelled some of the sadness of this moment with nostalgia, and their stories about the man who was an institution for so many actors in Indian cinema.

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Image source: @TheDilipKumar / Twitter

Waheeda Rehman worked with the late Dilip Kumar in films like Dil Diya Dard Liya (1966), Ram Aur Shyam (1967), Aadmi (1968) and Mashaal (1984), of which Ram Aur Shyam was the most successful. Speaking fondly of her costar, Waheeda ji talked about how she learnt so much from him and wishes they could’ve done more films together.

“I had a  wonderful experience working with Dilip sahab in these films. He was such a great artist. I was so small in front of him. But he never made me feel small. He was the master in front of the camera. He would quietly tell me  how to do some of my scenes.”

There can never be another Dilip Kumar, for several reasons, one of which is how he could emoted on screen, his each gesture and facial expression, no matter how tiny, laden with meaning.

“His complete surrender to his characters. His focussed energy. Nothing could distract him from his role. But most of all, it was intensity that held audiences in a thrall. One small twitch  of his eye could convey more than a thousand words. You know, there are great actors who are not stars. Dilip sahab was a rare instance of a great actor who was also a superstar,” said Waheeda ji.

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Waheeda Rehman told TOI about this aspect of his performance as well as his versatility, which enabled him to easily shift from tragedy to comedy.

“Audiences wept and laughed with him. He could do tragic roles to perfection. But later on, he started doing comedy with equal ease. I enjoyed working equally with him in the dark Dil Diya Dard Liya as much as the light Ram Aur Shyam. Our sequence in Yash Chopra’s Mashaal, our last film together where he tries to stop a vehicle to take me to the  hospital, is talked to this day. We shot it on the  road in Fort (Mumbai) at midnight.”

The occasion is one of deep loss, but fond remembrance is what makes it bearable. Waheeda ji even went on to share a funny incident she remembered from the sets of Ram Aur Shyam with Dilip sahab.

“I remember one funny scene from Ram Aur Shyam and in that scene, he had to switch over from being Ram to Shyam. In that scene, he had to eat many boiled eggs and there were retakes and the entire unit used to laugh and he would say, here I am getting tortured and you guys are laughing at me. I was sitting in front of him in the scene and he told me, ‘Please hasna mat anda gale mein phas jayega. Aur main mar jaunga”. So I replied it was your bright idea to do this thing.”

Dilip Kumar breathed his last at Mumbai’s Hinduja Hospital on Wednesday morning, following a prolonged illness. Several Bollywood celebrities and prominent personalities arrived at his Bandra resident to pay their respects to the Indian cinema legend and to offer strength and support to his wife, actress Saira Banu.

The film fraternity and the entire country has suffered a great loss today. Rest in peace, Dilip sahab!

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Jinal Bhatt

A Barbie girl with Oppenheimer humour. Sharp-tongue feminist and pop culture nerd with opinions on movies, shows, books, patriarchy, your boyfriend, everything.

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