Mrinal Pande: Goodbye Dilip Kumar, creator of our first dreams of love

By Dilip -

He was the star of my favourite film, Madhumati (1958). It was the first film shot in the Kumaon hills near our town of Nainital. For a few weeks, all of us in school strained our ears, above the teachers’ unending lessons, to hear the song, Aaja re pardesi, reverberating down in the valley, where the film was being shot. All day, the haunting music rippled and resonated around us.

The film was sold out in the local Laxmi Theatres as soon as it was released, and its songs became synonymous with our town — to us at least. Young men took to lurching with a Dilip Kumar gait, with sweaters tied around their necks. Our old retainer muttered angrily, “Bhoot lag gaya sabko Dilip Kumar ka! (Everyone’s been bitten by the Dilip Kumar bug!)”...

https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/goodbye-dilip-kumar-creator-of-our-first-dreams-of-love-7394053/

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