A Dilip Kumar, who left his rivals far behind from the moment he broke through in the euphonious company of Noorjehan, with that Yahaan badlaa duet in Shaukat Hussein Rizvi's Jugnu (1947).
In fact, Dilip Kumar, soon after Jugnu, came to rate as 'the first among three equals,' as represented by the triumvirate of Dilip Kumar, Raj Kapoor and Dev Anand. Still, it would be fair to state that so single-minded was Peshawar's Yusuf Khan in his devotion to acting that he always had an edge over Raj and Dev.
Filmfare, the prominent fan magazine in colour then, was our awards' guideline through the 1950s and 1960s. Filmfare's award record underscores Dilip Kumar's pre-eminence in the field.
He bagged the very first Filmfare Best Actor award for his memorable essaying of the drunk in Amiya Chakrabarty's Daag. Following that, starting 1955, Dilip registered a Filmfare Best Actor hat-trick for his portrayals in themes so varying as S M S Naidu's Azaad (opposite Meena Kumari), Bimal Roy's Devdas (opposite Suchitra Sen) and B R Chopra's Naya Daur (opposite Vyjayanthimala).
Face-to-face with Vyjayanthimala in Naya Daur, Dilip Kumar took our breath away with his enaction of Udey jab jab zulfen teree. What struck you here, was the fact that the only thing undisciplined about Dilip Kumar was his mop of hair -- a tuft, Yusuf Khan maintained, was at all times natural.
Naya Daur (after Azaad) was a studied attempt by Dilip to break his final-scene heroine-losing mould. "Following my tearful success in Jugnu, Mela, Shaheed and Andaz, they labelled me as a tragedian at the age of 26," Dilip told me. "You had to go through such a traumatising experience to get to know how exactly it felt to be so branded when I was still in my youthful prime."
Bimal Roy's Devdas put the imprimatur upon Dilip Kumar as the complete actor. It was a performance strikingly removed from K L Saigal's as the legendary Devdas. Dilip's silences were as eloquent as his speech -- much as the young of today might find that hard to believe.
Yet Yusuf himself had not seen a film till he turned 14! Dilip always opted to watch his own performances seated in the extreme-left seat of the third or fourth row. Such an angle, he felt, gave him the most honest feedback on his work.
In the picture: Dilip Kumar with Suchitra Sen in Devdas
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