As Dilip Kumar, by a wide consensus India’s greatest mainstream actor, passed away at 98 on July 7, I think of the four interviews that I did with him through the mid-1980s and early 1990s. By some strange coincidence, all the four were done on telephone. I have never met him personally.

During my last interview in August, 1995, when he was honored by the Indian state with its highest cinematic recognition of the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, I pointed out this odd fact. He took a characteristically long pause before responding to my observation. Even by his standards, it was a particularly long pause which prompted me to ask, “Yusufsaab (His real name is Yusuf Khan) Aap hein ki chaley gaye? Kafi lamba pause le liya. (Are you still on the line? It is a rather long pause.”)

He laughed and replied, “Abhi to hoon. Aap farma rahe they ki hum aur aap kabhi ruh-ba-rhu nahi miley. To yeh to meri kumnaseebi hi hui. (I am very much around. You were saying we have never met personally. That is my misfortune).” It was obvious to me he was saying that in jest and it was obvious to him I knew he was saying it in jest. We both laughed. “Who knows we might meet someday,” he said.

An earlier interview, sometime in 1985-86, was prompted by a request from the well-known Calcutta-based weekly magazine ‘Sunday’. Since I along with three other journalists ran a specialized news wire called Syndicated Press, we accepted whatever commissions that came our way. The theme of the article that Sunday wanted was about the four most celebrated Hindi films and their quintessence. Two of them happened to feature Dilip Kumar—Mughal-e-Azam (1960) and Ganga Jumna (1961). It was in that context that I first called him.

I remember Dilip Kumar getting the drift of my questions instantly and answering as if he had already thought about them. In particular, when I asked him about Ganga Jumna and why it worked so well with Indian audiences, he said, “Indian ethos…because it captured the Indian ethos. It was so rooted in what India then was. The characters on screen were accessible to ordinary movie watchers. They were so rooted that the viewers rooted for them.”

Even as I was talking to him, it struck me that before completing his 30s, Dilip Kumar had already been a defining part of two of Hindi cinema’s all-time great movies. I pointed that out to him. He was a bit taken aback by that. “Yeh baat to mere dimagh mein kabhi aai nahi. (That never crossed my mind.) But now that you say it, I think my age was incidental.” He then asked me, “Aap ki kya umr hai. Awaz se to abhi naujawan jaan padte ho but your questions are rather mature. (How old are? From your voice, you sound quite youthful….)

I said I was 24 and born in the same year that Ganga Jumna was released—1961. “Abhi to aap ki umr hi kya hai?” Dilip Kumar said and guffawed.

I did another phone interview with him in 1988 after actor, director and producer Raj Kapoor passed away. Raj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar were the closest of friends.

For that interview, as I was talking to him on the old-fashioned rotary phone I could see from the window of our office walking on the road in Bombay’s Dalal Street area my dear friend colleague and admittedly Dilip Kumar’s greatest admirer—Shireesh Kanekar. Shireesh, of course, is a much sought after Marathi writer with over 50 books to his name by now.

I told Dilip Kumar that I had to let Shireesh know that I was talking to his icon. Without covering the mouthpiece I yelled to Shireesh on the street. Instantly, as if on cue, Shireesh danced on the street and struck a typical Dilip Kumar pose. That bit I told Dilip Kumar who laughed out loud.

Dilip Kumar and I never met personally, of course. I happened to have the 1995 interview which was published in the New York-based weekly India Abroad. It was a short interview because he was pressed for time and, more importantly, as he said, “Mujhe migraine ki badi taqleef hai aaj. (I have an intense migraine attack today).”

Excerpts from my 1995 interview with Dilip Kumar:

Dilip Kumar, reputedly India's greatest actor, looks back on a career spanning 51 years and more than 80 movies with mellowed grievance about what he could have done but could not. At 73, Kumar, whose real name is Yusuf Khan, has just been conferred India's highest cinema honor, the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, for his lifetime contribution.

There has been a popular feeling that the honor has come too late for an actor who has inspired generations of actors and whose understated style is copied even now. But he himself lets that pass saying, "Now that it (the honor) is here, it is here." The prime reward for him, he says, has come from ordinary people who have loved and admired him for decades.

Do you think his honor has come too late for you?

I would not like to make any comment on that. Now that it is here, it is here. Whether it is sooner or later it is for the people to judge. The prime award or reward for me has been there for decades in the hearts of the people, in their looks, in the way they talk to me wherever I go out in India or abroad. I get that reward every day. I have always had people's recognition. This is state recognition which I respect.

Do you think there is anything left for you to achieve in terms of cinematic achievement? You seem to have done it all.

No, I did not even start. There was a lot to be done but we had to operate within the framework we have. To do better performances you need better films and themes and characterization. We have developed everything but surprisingly enough for a country of our size we don't seem to have good modern literature. We have ignored and neglected our culture. Cinema reflects all this. I wish I could have got some better characters to portray in superior equations. If you rule out the earlier pictures that were based on the classics, it will be apparent that the intent has been, even on the part of Dilip Kumar, to make the best out of the material on hand. The effort has been to improve upon what we have.

Do you feel frustrated that you got roles that did not do justice to your talent?

A: I would not quite put it that way but I did get frustrated at times waiting for weeks and months for a better proposition from a literary point of view. These days people come to me with ready-made audio cassettes instead of good script, and expect to imitate that.

Don't you get furious?

I stopped getting furious a long time ago.

It was once said of Marlon Brando that he demolished future generations of actors. That has been said of you, too, in the Indian context. Do you agree?

No, no, look at Dustin Hoffman and a host of others who have made a mark. If anything I would say Dilip Kumar was just a beginning. Some people may be stimulated, or to use a pompous expression, they may be inspired but I don't think they want to copy me. They may inadvertently slip into a style that is similar to mine.

Amitabh Bachchan believes that any actor of any standing that came after you, including he himself, would be lying if he said he was not inspired by your artistry.

Amitabh Bachchan himself is a complete actor. He can handle comedy, drama and so. It is unfortunate that he allowed himself to be branded as the angry young man and the monarch of the fisticuffs. He has versatility in him just like Raj Kapoor had. Raj Kapoor was a fine serious actor but then he took to filmmaking. Everyone who makes films is obliged to sell and selling is such a terrible job. Out of 100 rupees at the box office the picture-maker hardly gets about five to seven rupees. So filmmakers are forced to cater to the lowest common denominator.

Why have you shied away from directing? You are in the process of directing your first movie "Kalinga" only now at 73.

I stumbled into it; I would not have liked to direct it at all. It was just that the producer thought I should do it because of the subject of the film.

Do you care to look back on your career and do you like what you see?

Everybody likes to look back. When we started in the 1940s and the 1950s we were looking skywards and said now that the country is free we would make much better cinema. We felt that with our kind of human relationships we could produce films in league with other good cinemas in the world. But I think the government and authorities were silly. If an accusing finger has to be pointed it has to be pointed at the government and authorities for introducing a fiscal system that confiscated our revenue at the box office. There was no nurturing of the medium that everybody called influential. We stifled our cinema. We levied tax that progressively rose from 12 1/2 percent to 25, 36, 50, 55, 75, 90, 100, 120 and now 150 percent. This even before the picture-maker earns his capital. This abominable and immoral levy taxed our institutions out of existence. All our prestigious studious shutdown. This fiscal system forced them to cater to the lowest common denominator. (SAM)