The world knows Dilip Kumar as an acting legend. Faisal Farooqui, founder and CEO of India’s leading review and rating platform, Mouthshut.com, and a passionate entrepreneur, knew the man behind the actor. His lifelong trauma about the Qissa Khwani Bazaar Massacre of 1930 that he witnessed, his engagement with technology, the way he got on to Twitter and gained an understanding of the Internet, the foodie in Dilip Kumar who loved his paani puris at Karachi Sweets, the devout man whose Hajj trip was a memorable experience that the author shared. In his warm and intimate memoir, aptly titled Dilip Kumar: In the Shadow of a Legend (Om Books International) published to mark the actor’s first death anniversary, he provides an insight into unknown aspects of the star.
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The Techie
In the late 1990s, during my college days, Amazon.com had built an impressive global collection of books. Once, when I was busy packing my bags to leave for the US the next day, I received a call from Dilip Sahab. He asked me, “Faisal, I have heard that there is a bookstore in the US where you can find whichever book you want.”
“Yes, Sahab. Amazon.com. It’s a website. I can order any book in the world, and they will deliver it to my home in a matter of days.”
“Any book you want?” he queried, a tone of surprise in his voice.
“Yes, Sahab. Any book.”
“That’s great! In that case, I will give you the names of a few books. Can you find out by when you will receive them?”
I logged on to Amazon.com while he dictated the titles. He read out the names of three books, Raven Stole the Moon by Garth Stein, Acts of God: A Novel by Mary Morris, and Windfall: A Novel by James Magnuson. All of them were thrillers published during the mid- and late-1990s. I was surprised to see that Dilip Sahab was aware of these recent releases.
*
At an event I accompanied him, 2004.
He was quite amazed at the advancements in technology, but was also slightly critical of it. He often rued how technology had come at the cost of the quality of human interactions.
Sahab shared a funny relationship with technology. He had dictated a couple of blog posts to me. He loved to tweet, often taking a long time to compose a single tweet. However, like any other person of his age, I believe he found technology slightly intimidating.
He had first discussed the Internet with me in 2000. It was just before I had started my company. Sahab called me home one afternoon.
“What exactly is this Internet?”
Being a techie, I was happy that Sahab was approaching me with these questions. Watching his curiosity and enthusiasm, I was more than happy to explain and demystify the mystery that the Internet was to him.
“Sahab, when you join one computer with other computers in the world, that network is known as the Internet.”
“Interesting. How do I join them together?”
Sahab seemed slightly confused. It was a new concept that the youth was mastering, while the elder population was either trying to understand or avoid. Dilip Sahab was among those who were trying to understand. He had a million questions and I was preparing myself to answer them in a manner that would appeal to him.
“Sahab, do you know, with the Internet, you can make a call to the US for free?”
“Free? How?”
“All you have to do is go to a website called Dialpad.com.”
“What is a website?”
“A website is a collection of web pages, or media on the Internet.”
“It sounds very confusing.”
I chuckled. I knew it was, but I was there to help Sahab understand and learn it. I was going to use Dialpad.com as a means to explain it to him.
*
When Twitter was launched in 2006, it was an instant hit. It was a great platform to share your thoughts and find out what others had to say. Public figures and celebrities joined the platform in hundreds. There were also a bunch of people posing as celebrities, so Twitter came up with a ‘blue tick’ against the handle as a mark of authenticity of the account. I wanted Dilip Sahab to join Twitter as well, but being a private person, he didn’t agree.
By 2009, I had warmed Sahab up to the idea of Twitter, but he finally authorized me to create his account in December 2011. He posted his first tweet on his eighty-ninth birthday. Newspapers across the country celebrated Dilip Kumar’s arrival on Twitter. Twitter’s Asia Pacific Head Rishi Jaitley personally came down to my office, thanking me for bringing Dilip Kumar to the platform. Sahab was delighted with the tweets he received.
I became his official typist. Every time he would want to share a thought, he would ask me to type it out in 140 characters. It is one of the best jobs I’ve had in my life.
It was thanks to his engagement with Twitter that I discovered one remarkable thing about Dilip Sahab. Up until a point in time, I used to think he knew three to four languages.
Then, a tweet disclosed the stunning reality. A fan once posed a question on Twitter asking Dilip Sahab the number of languages he spoke. He replied, “In Peshawar, we spoke Hindko at home, and I had friends and neighbours from whom I picked up Pashto. My grandfather was a Farsi scholar, and I grew up speaking Farsi with my grandparents. Of course, we all grew up learning Urdu, as it was the popular culture. Since the family shifted to Bombay and subsequently Deolali, I am indebted to the Barnes School for their emphasis on written and spoken English. At Bombay Talkies, I picked up Bengali from Ashok Bhaiya (Ashok Kumar) and S. Mukherjee Sahab. Growing up in cosmopolitan Bombay, you have to be fluent in Hindi, Gujarati and Marathi. It is the local languages spoken.”
That’s nine languages!
Soon after that, I asked him, “Sahab, what would you consider your mother tongue?”
Without pausing to think, he replied, “Hindko.”
*
Amitabh Bachchan, Jaya Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan at Dilip Kumar’s 89th birthday celebration, 2011.
When Twitter was launched in 2006, it was an instant hit. It was a great platform to share your thoughts and find out what others had to say. Public figures and celebrities joined the platform in hundreds. There were also a bunch of people posing as celebrities, so Twitter came up with a ‘blue tick’ against the handle as a mark of authenticity of the account. I wanted Dilip Sahab to join Twitter as well, but being a private person, he didn’t agree.
By 2009, I had warmed Sahab up to the idea of Twitter, but he finally authorized me to create his account in December 2011. He posted his first tweet on his eighty-ninth birthday. Newspapers across the country celebrated Dilip Kumar’s arrival on Twitter. Twitter’s Asia Pacific Head Rishi Jaitley personally came down to my office, thanking me for bringing Dilip Kumar to the platform. Sahab was delighted with the tweets he received.
I became his official typist. Every time he would want to share a thought, he would ask me to type it out in 140 characters. It is one of the best jobs I’ve had in my life.
It was thanks to his engagement with Twitter that I discovered one remarkable thing about Dilip Sahab. Up until a point in time, I used to think he knew three to four languages.
Then, a tweet disclosed the stunning reality. A fan once posed a question on Twitter asking Dilip Sahab the number of languages he spoke. He replied, “In Peshawar, we spoke Hindko at home, and I had friends and neighbours from whom I picked up Pashto. My grandfather was a Farsi scholar, and I grew up speaking Farsi with my grandparents. Of course, we all grew up learning Urdu, as it was the popular culture. Since the family shifted to Bombay and subsequently Deolali, I am indebted to the Barnes School for their emphasis on written and spoken English. At Bombay Talkies, I picked up Bengali from Ashok Bhaiya (Ashok Kumar) and S. Mukherjee Sahab. Growing up in cosmopolitan Bombay, you have to be fluent in Hindi, Gujarati and Marathi. It is the local languages spoken.”
That’s nine languages!
Soon after that, I asked him, “Sahab, what would you consider your mother tongue?”
Without pausing to think, he replied, “Hindko.”
*
The Foodie and Life Lessons with Paani Puri
Sahab and I often used to drive down to a local shop for a plate of mouth-watering, sweet and spicy paani puri. He would pick me up in his maroon Mercedes and we would head to Karachi Sweets, which was then situated opposite St Stanislaus School at Hill Road in Bandra. We used to pull up next to the shop. The owner, receptive and accommodating of Sahab, would notice the car and send his best employee with plates of paani puri. Sahab would never exit his car. He was aware that the sheer number of people who would crowd outside Karachi Sweets just to meet him would overwhelm the store and the employees trying to run it.
On one lovely summer evening of 2004, Sahab said, “Let’s have paani puri by the sea today.”
So, we decided to stop by for a plate of paani puri at the sea-facing coffee shop at Taj Land’s End. Formerly known as the Regent’s Hotel, it was built and owned by Siraj Lokhandwala. One of the most beautiful locations in Mumbai, Regent’s Hotel suffered major financial losses, and eventually, the Lokhandwala family sold the property to India’s Taj Group of Hotels in late 2002.
Before we could find a table and settle down, people started approaching us, trying to meet Dilip Sahab. A thorough gentleman, after the first ten minutes of meet and greet, Sahab pointed towards me and said, “Meet him. He’s my friend. He’s very hungry, so I’ve brought him here so that we eat something. Please allow us to eat.”
Everyone smiled at us respectfully and we were given some privacy to enjoy our meal. We ordered two plates of paani puri. It was delicious. After we were done, Sahab requested for the bill. The manager came to our table and said, “Sir, it is our honour that you have graced us with your presence. We could never ask you to pay.”
Sahab was a man of honour himself, and I knew that he wouldn’t leave without paying the bill, so I decided to have a word with the manager privately.…
When the cheque arrived, I habitually reached out for the small leather folder to pay. A slightly stunned Dilip Kumar stopped me.
“Why will you pay? I am older than you. I will pay the bill.”
He opened the soft folder, picked up the smooth long piece of paper, and for a minute, just stared at the amount. When he put the bill down to take out his wallet, I picked up the bill.
Each plate of paani puri costed us 250 rupees. Sahab pulled a face and said, “Five hundred rupees for paani puri. Karachi Sweets on Hill Road serves better paani puri for just twenty rupees a plate.”
I chuckled at his reaction. A man of his stature could afford to buy each ingredient for a thousand rupees every single day of his life without flinching, but it was expensive for a plate of paani puri. The hard-working man inside him who grew up in Peshawar and Deolali and learned the value of hard-earned money in the canteens of Pune and the studios of Bombay, couldn’t reconcile himself to the exorbitant amount being charged for something that was available at a fraction of the price elsewhere.
“All the money we earn involves hard work. If you don’t put the work into it, you don’t respect it. Work hard, earn your living. You’ll always be proud of it, and you’ll never spend it on trivial things.”
Yet another lesson from this most unassuming of men.
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All photographs and captions are extracts from Faisal Farooqui’s Dilip Kumar: In the Shadow of a Legend published by Om Books International in 2022. Check it out here https://www.amazon.in/Dilip-Kumar-Shadow-Faisal-Farooqui/dp/9392834667
