“Dilip Kumar Didn’t Contribute to Lift Indian Cinema”

The ace Bollywood actor Naseeruddin Shah penned down a piece regarding the late veteran actor Dilip Kumar, who died earlier this week at 98, and questioned his contributions to Indian cinema apart from acting.

Naseeruddin Shah wrote the opinion piece for Indian Express and acknowledged Dilip Kumar’s mesmeric acting skills but raised a few questions.

Shah wrote, “whether his (Kumar) example as a star was worthy of emulation and whether he helped push the envelope toward progress or whether he facilitated the downward spiral of popular Hindi cinema into the total star-centricity in which it wallows today”.

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He maintained that the actor, who served for almost 5 decades, didn’t slog away to lift the Indian cinema.

The actor said Dilip, despite being a bigwig, didn’t put much effort apart from acting.

“Given the position he was in, it is more than evident he didn’t do enough apart from acting and being involved in social causes close to his heart”, he added.

Not only this, Shah opined that the actor’s biography was only a rehash of his old interviews and holds no lessons for the upcoming stars.

“It’s baffling why a man as conscious of his place in history as he was should be reluctant to record his interaction with some of the admittedly great filmmakers of his time or say anything really informative about the nature of his work and technique”.

Naseeruddin Shah, while shedding light on the persona of Dilip Kumar, acknowledged his ‘undoubted greatness’ and expressed how his mood of expression didn’t follow the ‘fake theatricality, arch voice-intonations, and constantly wagging hands’.

Notably, Naseeruddin Shah also revealed in a recent interview that the late legend had once advised him against joining the cinema industry.

“I think you should go back and study. People from good families should not try to become actors”, the Ishqiya actor recalled Dilip’s statement.