Dilip Kumar behind the arclights

Dilip Kumar's emergence as one of India's greatest actors was partly the result of a simple game of probability. Actress Devika Rani had set before a young Yusuf Khan (his real name) three options for a more viewer-friendly name "" Dilip Kumar, Jehangir and Vasudev.

So it was neither the preference for a 'Hindu' name or the 'Kumar syndrome' that many film pundits have suggested but an elementary instance of choice that turned Yusuf Khan into Dilip Kumar.

Bunny Reuben's biography takes us on a journey into the life of India's original tragedy king "" the pinnacle of inspiration, the guru of method acting, the lord of the soliloquy, the director's actor and the idol for a generation of megastars.

The book is extensive, with multiple versions of how Yusuf Khan first met his mentor, the legendary Devika Rani, how even after his repeated failures at the box office the cameraman-turned-prolific director in Mumbai and Tollygunge (in Kolkata) Nitin Bose asked stars to emulate Dilip Kumar's studied attempts at being natural on camera, and his journey as a superstar.

From the understated tragic in Bimal Roy's immortal Devdas to the mercurial Sagina Mahato till the angry old man in Shakti (for which he won his last Best Actor Filmfare award) the author analyses Dilip Kumar's early difficulties, his prolific rise, his egoistic rule as 70 mm monarch and the inevitable completion of the cycle.

The story of how Kumar managed to unshackle himself from the chains of his non-conventional looks and persona and emerge bigger than the pack around him has become a struggle that every subsequent star has had to live up to.

Breaking moulds has been the path to glory for most of the brilliant actors of mainstream cinema, from the understated Balraj Sahni (the idol of theatre icon Habib Tanvir and my personal favourite on the all-time best actor roster) to the great Amitabh Bachchan. And Bunny Reuben more than gives Dilip Kumar his due.

Gossip mongers or, for that matter, film students interested in understanding the actor's psyche would undoubtedly love to read why Dilip Kumar turned down B R Chopra's life triangle involving a married woman "" Gumrah (1963).

That was because it was based on the real-life triangle involving Dilip Kumar, actress Kamini Kaushal and her husband, who was reportedly threatened by her brother with a rifle on a film set.

Reuben's book is full of individual descriptions and behind-the-scenes and rarely-heard interviews from stars and directors.

Unchallenged in his command over the film chronicle that unfolded before him, Reuben's comments are sometimes insightful.

Take for example his interpretation of Guru Dutt taking on the role that Kumar refused in Pyaasa and turning it into one of Bollywood's all-time greatest performances: "What, in fact, Guru Dutt had actually done, was to... inform the entire cinema-going world, that he had given a Dilip Kumar role to a totally new actor "" and he'd made a superhit out of his film."

Where Reuben falters is in succumbing to the excessive self-indulgence of quoting himself and his endless fawning about the actor's greatness as a human being.

While the extensive research and timely use of anecdotes would interest any reader, it is unlikely that serious readers would experience the same sense of romanticism that Reuben did when he heard 'the love legend' (yet another cliche) sing at a personal session.

That apart, the inane accolades that Reuben bestows on himself makes the introductory sections to the book the subject of jokes.

Reuben insists that he is qualified, by virtue of his experience (read age), to coronate Dilip Kumar with the title of the greatest actor the country has ever produced.

While trivia about Kumar "" including instances of how parliamentarian Lilavati Munshi had raised, in the Rajya Sabha, the issue of Dilip Kumar's hairstyle having "adverse effects" on the country's youth "" will find a place alongside other biographies, the book could have easily done without its author's pomposity.

Reuben claims in his acknowledgement that he has already written "...the most definitive biography of Raj Kapoor" and starts his introduction with a quote, which he writes, "is a sentence written by me".

Thankfully, his meanderings and narrative style, which would have made Julius Caesar blush, has enough meat to sustain reader interest. A good buy, but surely a humbler writer would have spared us the unintentional sniggers.

DILIP KUMAR
Star Legend of Indian Cinema:
The Definitive Biography

Bunny Reuben
HarperCollins
Price: Rs 500