Jawaharlal Nehru shaking hands with Dilip Kumar
MUMBAI: In the early 1960s Dilip Kumar shared a stage with Jawaharlal Nehru at a public meeting at Chowpatty.
After Dilip saab, as he was fondly called, passionately spoke in ornate Urdu, the crowd began to melt, forcing Nehru to joke with Kumar: “Barkhurdar, chalo chalte hain (dear, let us go).” But the thespian rose again, reprimanding the crowd that their PM was yet to speak and they should not leave unless “Panditji” (Nehru) finished his speech. The gathering froze in silence.
That was the power of oratory Dilip Kumar commanded. Asif Farooqui, Bandra-based businessman and a close family friend of Kumar and his wife Saira Bano, to whom the actor once narrated the Chowpatty incident, recalls that Kumar genuinely loved Urdu, patronized poets and mushairas and participated in social works.
Peshawar
North-west-frontier
Pakistan
Lucknow
Uttar-pradesh
India
Mumbai
Maharashtra
Bandra
Barkhurdar
Punjab
Wasif-farooqui