WO JIS BHASHA MEIN BOLTE THE, US BHASHA KI SHAAN BADH JATI THI... BY ALI PETER JOHN

I first saw the magic of Dilip Kumar when i must have been 8 or 10 years old and my mother, a devout Christian wanted to go on a pilgrimage to the famous church of the Mother of the Mount in bandra - Ali Peter John

Instead of going straight to the church, she took a taxi and told the driver to first pass by the Bunglow of Dilip Kumar and then take us to the church and the driver obeyed her even though he wanted to go to the church first because he said "Missy baba, mere liye Church ka dhanda jyada acha hai, lekin aap kehti hai to mein bade sahab ke bunglow se lekr jata hu" and to my mother's sheer luck, Dilip kumar himself was standing alone at the gate of his bunglow just in white and when he saw my mother's taxi waiting next to his gate, he came to the taxi and shook hands with my mother and me and my younger brother.

My mother was lost in another world after he shook hands with her. She used to see every film of his and take us too with her.

I remember how she took us to the Neptune talkies Bandra to see Mughal E Azam and when she couldn't get tickets, she bought tickets in the black market for 200 rupees each which was 3 times her income because that was the amount given to her by my father's sister at 100 rupees every month and she made up for the rest of the money by distilling illicit liquor.

Her Nasha about Dilip Kumar slowly caught me and I too never miss seeing any film of him. Time passed. My mother died. I was in bhavans college and the college was starting a new department which was to deal with a new subject called bio economics.

The head of the department of economics had invited the vice chancellor of the University for the inauguration, but he wanted Dilip kumar to be the guest of honour. My destiny to be associated with Dilip Kumar started with this function.

I was asked to go to Dilip kumar and invite him for the inauguration and I don't know how or why he agreed to come to a function which was to start at 11 AM which I later realised was not the time he even woke up. But he asked me to give him two days and he would be there. And can you imagine the thrill that swept through my entire being?

He arrived 10 mins before 11 in his legendary white trouser and shirt and his hair in a mess which made him look more handsome.

The entire campus of my college looked as if it was celebrating the entrance of a badshah, but he preferred to walk till the venue because he wanted to see the garden, the trees and the flowers of the campus about which he had heard so much.

The vice chancellor and all the other professors must have felt that the actor was just a decoration piece and would certainly know nothing about bioeconomics. But once he started talking, he spoke about about bioeconomics with the authority the learned economists and professors in the audience could not even imagine.

He asked the audience to tolerate him and spoke about the subject for over an hour and the resounding applause that he received was something that had become a habit with him wherever he went.

Soon after the function, he was offered a bouquet of flowers and he gave the bouquet to me and roses never looked so beautiful to me ever again.

A few weeks later, he was invited to a sports meet of my village which was a cluster of many villages. A majority of the crowd was all Christians and a few Muslims and bhaiyas from UP.

He came in his usual white outfit and after having a view of the crowd, he spoke in a language which was a blend of all the languages spoken by the people around.

The only line I could understand and still remember was, "Why do you people look at me like an animal from a zoo? I am a human being like anyone of you and I feel like you, I eat like you, I drink like you, I do everything that you do, then why can't you treat me like a normal human being ?

It makes me feel very strange" This speech was also received with an endless applause from people who had perhaps never heard a speech like that before.

It was the year 1986 and the film industry had gone on a strike to protest against the rising taxes.

Every star big or small walked into the streets in black from the opera house to choupati where they had a public meeting which was addressed by many leaders and luminaries.

It was finally the turn of the man in white and he spoke in shudh Hindi and covered a wide variety of subjects with his eloquent words, feelings and understandings.

Call my imagination fertile or foolish, but that evening has the sunset I could feel the sun stopping before it set and the moon and the stars delaying their arrival and every grain of sand on the beach standing still to the listen to the Shenshah.

There were other speakers like Raj Kapoor and Dev Anand and they too spoke very well but no one could steal the thunder like Dilip Kumar did on that evening and I will remember that evening only for that priceless speech made by a priceless man.

I must have attended hundreds of meetings addressed by him, but he was always at his best when he spoke about languages like Urdu, Hindi and Marathi and he could speak on any subject with preparation or without.

He had the best opportunities to make the best speeches when he was a Sheriff of Bombay and he loved talking to gatherings of students fr different universities and people who came visiting Bombay and for whom a visit to Bombay was not complete without meeting him or listening to him.

He had meetings of some of the best poets and writers of the Urdu and Hindi languages in his house where he lavished not only praise, but even gifts to them and gave them advice where needed on how to improve their language or the way they recited their poetry.

The renouned Pakistani poet Ahmed Faraz wrote and entire poem on the way dilip kumar spoke and how he could capture the hearts and minds of people with his words and in one of his lines he said refering to Dilip kumar, " wo jab bolte hain to phool jharte hai ".

Similar poems have been written about his command over languages in different languages. And neither is the space I have, the energy I have or the time I have enough to sing the praises of the greatest actors of our times who was also one of the greatest orators of our times.

I can't stop writing this piece without mentioning an occasion i was present. 100s of educated, intelligent and knowledgeable men and women of the parsi community had invited him to address them on a Saturday evening .

The function was to start at 7:30 but he had not arrived till 8 and some of the parsis started grumbling and one of the elderly man said, " Ye film actor logo ko kyu bulata hai hum log? Abhi dekho ye sala Dilip Kumar abhi tak aaya nahi. Kidhar to bhi bar mein baith ke daru pita hoga" .

And then the man with the magic in his words came and won the hearts of the audience with just his apology for being late and when he spoke, he spoke and the very men and women who were grumbling against him were the ones who were applauding him the most.

And for the unversed, let me complete this piece by informing them that he spoke several languages with the same fluency and perfection and among the languages he was completely in command of were Urdu, Pushtu, Persian, Gujarati and even some of the languages spoken in the south.

He took his one time friend and later his Political rival Bal Thackeray by absolute surprise when he spoke to him on the phone for more than an hour when it was a matter of some very important issue associated with the people living in Maharashtra, especially the Muslims.

And he was not only a perfectionist as a speaker, but he was also a very good writer, especially in English and Urdu, but he took his own time when he wrote, but whatever he wrote will be remembered as long as reading and writing are an essential part of this world.

Mein apne aap ko itna khushkismat samajhta hu ki mein ek aise mahan insan ke sath baitha hu, Hansa hu, roya hu aur Jaan se jyada chaha hu.

Mujhe agar koi puche ki tumko dunia mein sabse keemati lamhe kaun se mile, to mein baar baar lagatar kahunga ki wo lamhe Jo mene ek bache aur ek gyani ke sath bitaye hai.