Dilip Kumar's Genius Through His Best Films

A magical voice, artful pauses, emotive eyes, a restrained body language — the actor used every device available to produce a film oeuvre that is unparalleled in Indian cinema

- Maithili Rao

Kaun kambakht hai jo bardasht karne ke liye peeta hai? Main toh peeta hoon, ki saans le sakun. Pain throbs through every syllable. Existential angst, mocking self-pity, despair at having to endure yet another day. There is no drunken slur to dull the clarity of the words of a lovelorn man who turns self-pity into spoken poetry that resonates through time. These lines are at the top of many film buffs’ favorite dialogue. They sum up Devdas.

Dilip Kumar is the original voice of Indian cinema. He made it an instrument that evoked myriad meanings and glided over a range of emotions. Then came the restrained body language — the raised finger he made so uniquely his — followed by the artful pause that seemed so spontaneous and eyes that could speak of love, hurt, anger, amusement — anything that a camera lens could capture.

This is a craft, but it’s invisible. He could bring variations to make the familiar different. DCP Ashwini Kumar of Shakti (incidentally, Ramesh Sippy’s finest film in my book), burdened by the pain of his only son’s rejection, mutes articulation of sorrow because duty overrides pain. It is only at the end that his pain is a silent shriek as he holds his dying son, different from Devdas’ self-destructive resignation.