Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday paid his tributes to the late actor Dilip Kumar. He said that the legendary actor was ‘blessed with unparraled brillance’, and his death was a ‘loss to our cultural world’.
“Dilip Kumar Ji will be remembered as a cinematic legend. He was blessed with unparalleled brilliance, due to which audiences across generations were enthralled. His passing away is a loss to our cultural world. Condolences to his family, friends and innumerable admirers. RIP,” PM Modi tweeted.
Dilip Kumar had been admitted to the PD Hinduja Hospital on 30 June for a variety of age-related issues.
Dilip Kumar was an edifice of the Hindu film industry in an era of black and white montages with smidgens of infrastructure and budget.
It is said of Dilip Kumar, who passed away in the early hours of Wednesday, that he was at the vanguard of character acting and his Hollywood counterpart would be Marlon Brando. Bollywood soared new heights with Dilip Kumar.
There are tales about Dilip Kumar’s method acting. The most widely-known pertains to the self-produced Gunga-Jumna, the Nitin Bose directorial of 1961 that, many whisper, was ghost-directed by the actor himself. Coming immediately after his 1961 superhit Mughal-e-Azam, Dilip Kumar is said to have run all around the studio premise, to the point of collapsing, in order to get the right look and feel for his death scene in the film.
The performance is counted among one of the finest by any male actor in mainstream Bollywood, and plot of the film would find resonance in many subsequent Hindi