Dilip Kumar birthday special: FPJ writer recounts his rendezvous with the thespian
Dilip Kumar is gifted with a marvellous sense of music and plays piano like a pro. He played the piano for the song Aaj ki raat mere dil ki salami le le.
Yusuf sahab (Dilip Kumar, no one calls him Dilip Kumar in Pakistan) se milna filmi tawareekh ke auraaq ko palatne ki maanind hai.â (Meeting Yusuf sahab is like flipping through the pages of film history), tellingly told me a Pakistani film-journalist friend of mine, Nisar Ahmad. So very true.
Having met Dilip Kumar a few times at Turf Club, Poona and interviewed him for Indian and Pakistani Urdu and Pashto dailies, I daresay, the man is an institution and a treasure-trove of cinematic as well as worldly wisdom. I first met him in 2002. I got an assignment from a Pashto daily in Peshawar to interview him. I told him in Pashto that I frequently visited Pakistan to teach Quraâan and Islamic Theology and that Persian was my mother tongue. Ha