When Dilip Kumar finally watched Mughal-e-Azam at Pune’s FTII
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Few would know that it was 18 years after the long-lasting movie was launched.
The passing away of Bollywood movie legend Dilip Kumar aged 98 on Wednesday, has opened up an awesome floodgate of reminiscences — each cinematic reminiscences and personal recollections — by folks reducing throughout social, financial, political and nationwide limitations.
However, few would know that it was in the primary theatre of Pune’s Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) that Dilip Kumar finally watched one among his defining classics, K. Asif’s spellbinding Mughal-e-Azam (1960) for the primary time in his life — a full 18 years after the movie was launched.
As the story goes, method again in the summertime of 1978, the legendary actor wished to see 15 classics throughout a sojourn within the metropolis.
“It was the great P. K. Nair, the country’s pre-eminent archivist and scholar and the driving force behind the National Film Archive of India (NFAI), who had arranged the screening of the films at the FTII main theatre. All films were chosen by his wife, the actress Saira Bano,” says present FTII Director Bhupendra Kainthola.
Then, in a veritable cinema marathon, Dilip Kumar noticed a movie a day at the primary theatre and much more fondly, Saira Bano was by his aspect when he finally noticed his nice efficiency in Mughal-e-Azam — which he had reportedly by no means seen because it took the nation by storm in 1960.
The incident bears an astonishing similarity with the expertise of one other legendary actor of the Occident — Peter O’ Toole, who reportedly considered his best cinematic function, that of T.E. Lawrence in David Lean’s immortal Lawrence of Arabia, virtually 20 years after that movie’s preliminary launch in 1962.
Coincidentally, Dilip sahab had reportedly turned down Mr. Lean for a key function in Lawrence — that of the Sherif Ali — which finally went to Omar Sharif and made him recognized to worldwide audiences.
Later, in one other go to to the FTII, the actor was chief visitor at the 1997 convocation of the FTII, which was held in December that yr. Also current on the event had been iconic theatre and movie character Dr. Mohan Agashe, then Director of the institute, and filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt, who was then FTII Chairman.
However, regardless of the event being considerably marred by college students who selected to air a few of their complaints publicly, Dr. Agashe remembers how Dilip sahab’s magnificent dignity humbled all these current.
“I had organised the convocation which was interrupted by students voicing their complaints… Mahesh Bhatt was very upset. But Dilip Kumar shone through it all with his tremendous and awesome dignity…he told the protesting students that the FTII was a temple and that they ought not to wash their dirty linen in public,” reminisced Dr. Agashe whereas talking with The Puucho.
He fondly recalled how Dilip Kumar had beloved watching him [Dr. Agashe] in Vijay Tendulkar’s basic play Ghashiram Kotwal.
“Yusuf bhai (Dilip Kumar was born Yusuf Khan) had no airs about him, unlike the stars of today…he came to watch the 100th performance of Ghashiram Kotwal at the Shanmukhananda Hall in 1975 and he loved every moment of it …we had wonderful conversations whenever he came to Pune,” stated Dr. Agashe.
“Like every institution and podium he graced, the FTII was no exception and it has unforgettable memories of Dilip Kumar. When he spent a fortnight watching classics in the FTII’’s main theatre, I am sure that he must have added to the artistic vibrancy of the place, which has over six decades produced the ‘who’s who’ of Indian cinema and the entertainment industry,” stated Mr. Kainthola, including that the institute remained without end grateful to the late thespian for his kindness in presiding over the FTII’s twenty first Convocation Ceremony in 1997.
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