In many ways, Dilip Kumar is an enigma, even if part of the enigma is designer stuff. Very little is known about his early life, and he quit films in 1998, so even less is known about the last 17 years of his life. It is in this scenario that we see the publication of his long-awaited autobiography, written with the help of chronicler Udayatara Nayar, among the senior-most film journalists and editors in Mumbai and the daughter of a the well-known S.S. Pillai, who edited Screen (she was to suc...

DILIP KUMAR: Me and the Padma Vibhushan winner Getting the nation’s second highest civilian honour at 92 years and 45 days of age maybe a good example of beating the clock by the proverbial whisker, and Dilip Kumar is a most deserving recipient. But his art has already bagged all possible honours in the 54 year acting career he had, from 1944 to 1998. As a teenager, I earned tons of appreciation for mimicking him in the famous temple-deity confrontation scene from Dil Diya Dard Liya. L...