From Fruit Trader To Cinema Icon, Dilip Kumar's Evolution Mirrored India's
NDTV
Kumar, who died on Wednesday morning at the age of 98, was the thinking, impassioned hero framed in black and white who moved on to a spectrum of roles in technicolour, his life and career a testimony to India as it grew and evolved over the decades.
He was more than a star, more than just an actor even. Dilip Kumar, or Yousuf Khan as he was born, was the legend who epitomised the composite culture of India, both in his films that explored stories of rebellion, hope and love and in his seven decades in public life. Kumar, who died on Wednesday morning at the age of 98, was the thinking, impassioned hero framed in black and white who moved on to a spectrum of roles in technicolour, his life and career a testimony to India as it grew and evolved over the decades. One of the handful of greats etched in the annals of Indian cinema, tragedy came to be affixed to his name with his turn as the brooding lover in classics such as "Devdas", "Andaz" and the epic romance "Mughal-e-Azam". But the 'Tragedy King'', who did his first film "''Jwar Bhata" in 1944, three years before Independence, and his last "Lal Quila" in 1998, was more than that. Reflecting the times his films were made in, he was the Nehruvian hero grappling with problems plaguing a young India in the cinema of the late 40s and 50s, most notably "Shaheed" and "Naya Daur". That idealism gave way to a certain disillusionment in the 60s with films such as "Ganga Jamuna", an angst that found pronounced resonance with the emergence of the angry young man persona of the 70s Bachchan by when Kumar had moved on to character roles.More Related News
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