While the Mughals seems to be receding from text books and memory, the stage presentation of Mughal-e-Azam is spreading its message of love in North America.
After repeatedly essaying the role of doomed lover, Dilip Kumar, a thinking actor, found it diffcult to break out of in real life. Heeding his psychoanalyst, he flirted with some frothy roles and played the swashbuckling hero with elan, recalls Dinesh Raheja.
'When he came to Bombay, he lived on the streets with his mother.' 'He had to sell whatever little they had in their bags -- their clothes, his toys.' 'When they did not have money, a bakery would sell the bread crumbs fallen on the floor for one paisa in a newspaper.' 'But before eating, they had to take out the rat and cockroach shit from the crumbs.'
'If this is how the audience likes me, I will continue doing it.'