Why Saira Banu's Glad Dilip Kumar Didn't Do Film With Elizabeth Taylor

I knew about Lawrence of Arabia, but did not know about Taj Mahal. Need to check if that movie was ever made.

Mike Ghouse

Why Saira Banu's Glad Dilip Kumar Didn't Do Film With Elizabeth Taylor

-Vikram Thapa   | December 13, 2015 17:47 IST (Mumbai)

Saira Banu and Dilip Kumar photographed at their Mumbai residence.

"DILIP SAAB NEVER WANTED TO BE IN HOLLYWOOD AND I AM GLAD HE DIDN'T DO TAJ MAHAL WITH ELIZABETH TAYLOR. IMAGINE WHERE WOULD I GO IF HE WOULD HAVE DONE THE FILM AND SOMETHING WOULD HAVE HAPPENED BETWEEN HIM AND ELIZABETH?" SAID SAIRA BANU. DILIP KUMAR RECEIVED THE PADMA VIBHUSHAN HONOUR ON DECEMBER 13



At the age of 93, two days after he celebrated his birthday Dilip Kumar was awarded with the Padma Vibhushan at his Bandra residence in Mumbai on December 13 by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh. And while the thespian wasn't keeping well to comment on his achievement, his wife and former actress Saira Banu was emotional.

"Why wouldn't I be (proud of him)," asked Saira. "The government has awarded him with such a huge award. I am the proudest wife in the world today." (Also Read: Dilip Kumar Receives Padma Vibhushan Honour)

"Dilip saab has always been a man of few words. He was very happy when he received the award and he even smiled," she said.

Dilip saab gave many hits at the Indian box office even the western world was well aware of his superstardom. Hollywood director David Lean wanted Dilip Kumar to play the character of Sherif Ali in Lawrence of Arabia, he also wanted the actor to star in Taj Mahal.

"Dilip saab never wanted to be in Hollywood and I am glad he didn't do Taj Mahal with Elizabeth Taylor. Imagine where would I go if he would have done the film and something would have happened between him and Elizabeth?" said Saira Banu.

Rajesh Khanna no more

HisHis gift to India is Kurta - although every star had worn it before, but it was him who popularized it, especially the shorter version of Kurta. It was a rage in India. I wore Kurtas in college, had them in several colors too!

He was also the first one to bring a change in hair style, partial parting! No one had done that before.

This may come as a surprise to many, he was a good mixer, most movie stars don't have religious barriers. He was a great friend of Veteran comedian Mehmood, whose estate was near my home in Yelahanka, Bangalore... one Ramadan eid, him, Amitabh and others showed up at the Eid grounds, and he was in the front row praying along with Mehmood and others in the celebrations, I was in the third row.... it was sometimes around 1980.

I wrote a tribute on Dev Anand and Shammi Kapoor and I have to write one for Rajesh Khanna. I completely missed out on Raj Kapoor, Rafi and Rajendra Kumar, my other favorites. Thank God all my favorite girls are still around; Waheeda Rahman, Hema Malini, Asha Parekh, Madhuri Dixit and Tanuja.

When Raaz was released, my friends and I had a huge debate about his future. Is he going to be a super star like Dilip Kumar, Dev Anand, Rajendra Kumar or Dharmendra.... at that time Amitabh Bachchan was no where...

He was indeed recognized for his talent in Anand and I believe won the Filmfare Award, and then came Bawarchi. Dushman gave him a good lift and Aradhana put him on the top while Kati patang beefed up his career along with Haathi mere Saathi... and Aaya Sawan Jhoom ke.. Andaaz, Daag and others

The biggest hits were

• ·        Yahan wahan sare Jahan pay tera raaj hai
• ·        Achcha to hum chalte hain
• ·        chup gaye sare nazare oye kya baat hogayee
• ·        chal chal chal mere haathi
• ·        Zindagi kaisi hai paheli
• ·        baghom may bahaar hai
• ·        mere sapnon ki raani kab aayegi to
• ·        zindagi ka safar, hai a kaisa safar
• ·        A shaam mastani
• ·        A jo mohabbat hai

This was the song we debated on

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTeu-Hx0tos

Mike Ghouse
www.MikeGhouse.net

Dilip Kumar and Madhubla; a powerful love story

I was the 65^th viewer of the this outstanding 33 minutes love story, it is one of the best real love stories with full range of emotions I have seen. I do regret that it is not in English or English subtitles. It is in Hindustani (Hindi/Urdu) language, the language of Indian Films.

This is a dream come true for guys like me who want to see Indian films in less than an hour (usually three hours)… if I did not have the passion for Pluralism; this is what I would have done; to reduce all Indian films to one hour. Here is the best example of such work.

This is the real love story of two of the greatest movie actors of Bollywood. It is incredible work, a story created from of pieces of different films, reflecting the real love story of Dilip Kumar and Madhubala.

It is one of most beautiful love stories laced with a touch of some of the most beautiful songs and dialogues, its indeed a hog’s heaven for the people of the subcontinent.

I had the luxury of spending over three hours with Dilip Kumar and Saira Banu, when they were in Dalals, and subsequently managing his media schedule. I was also their attendent along with Taj Bhai in checking them into the hotel. We had great philosophical conversations with them, indeed, we talked about Pluralism way back then in the early Nineties. It's been 18-19 years ago.

I thank the narrator lady Nigar Khan for putting this together, however, I really wish she had not acted and talked like villainous Bindu in the old Indian movies. I love that set with dim blue gray lighting.

I dropped everything to watch this film, and if you do, please let me know.

Thank you

Watch and enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cR3SEh2rM78&feature=player_embedded

~ ~ ~ ~

Mike Ghouse, watch the trailer of the film I am making on the website www.AmericaTogetherFoundation.com. When complete, it is a love story weaved into American Context, making a patriotic American out of all of us.

The New Hero of Indian Television

A Bollywood superstar has channeled his social conscience into a surprise hit show
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304550004577510613053552278.html 

By AATISH TASEER

On Indian TV, there has never been anything quite like "Truth Alone Prevails." Since its debut in May, the weekly show has reached more than 470 million viewers with its inquiries into issues like pesticides in food, domestic violence and the abortion of female fetuses. Within moments of airing, each episode trends at No. 1 on Twitter in India. Ten million people have sent text messages, emails and comments to the show's website to share their questions, opinions and fears.

Photos: Aamir Khan, On Screen and On The Streets

View Slideshow

Associated Press

A selection of moments in Khan's off-screen career.

In two Indian states, the show has prompted governments to bolster the enforcement of existing laws, and a few weeks ago the show's host was called to testify before a parliamentary committee after an episode on medical malpractice. The scale of the response has made "Satyamev Jayate" (as the show is called in Hindi) more like a people's movement than a television show.

More astonishing is the fact that this social and political phenomenon is the work of Aamir Khan, a superstar of India's giant film industry. At 47, Mr. Khan combines something of the glamour and social concern of George Clooney and Brad Pitt. Like many Bollywood actors, he made his name dancing around trees and singing in the rain, but over the years he has turned to more serious things. Three years ago he had a great success with "3 Idiots," a comedy about the mind-numbing state of Indian education. Now, having turned down offers to do the game shows that many actors of his standing have taken up, he has created something startling and altogether new in India.

Hindustan Times Via Getty Images

testifying to a parliamentary panel on June 21.

The format of "Truth Alone Prevails" is simple. (The show airs on the Star network, which, like The Wall Street Journal, is owned by News Corp.) Mr. Khan introduces the issue of the day to a live studio audience; a short video is shown, featuring a real-world case of hardship or injustice; and then, with only a modest amount of television wizardry, the lights come up and the person from the video is on stage, seated opposite Mr. Khan. And they begin to talk. Mr. Khan does not dazzle the audience with his star power; for the most part, he just listens. It is his guests, often heartbreakingly ordinary, who do the talking.

What emerges from their stories is a creeping horror, a vision of modern India that is stark and deeply unsettling: the family whose mother's life is snatched away, they say, in a botched and unauthorized organ transplant; the 12-year-old girl who accuses a 55-year-old family friend of sexual abuse; the call-center worker who tells of the forced abortion of her female fetuses—six times in eight years—at the hands of her husband's family. Mr. Khan's style is wry and laid back, but occasionally the stories are too much for him, and his eyes well with tears.

“Though all manner of cruelty and casual violence are on display, the show is essentially uplifting.”

India has not always been comfortable looking this hard at itself. Mr. Khan's show indicates a new candor and boldness, and the response has been staggering. As he told me, "We used to sit back, my team and I, and discuss how people would react, what they would feel. And the kind of response we dreamed of, and hoped for, that is exactly what we're getting." He admits to being emotionally drained by the show at times: "There's a lot of trauma, a lot of distress, a lot of injustice" out there, he said, and he has yet to commit to a second season. But he also says that he encountered an "equal number of examples of courage, high levels of integrity and deeply honed values."

Critics have accused Mr. Khan of being far less reliable on scientific issues than he is on social ones. Some also say that the show is preachy, even messianic, and that its research is not always up to scratch. After Mr. Khan's episode on malpractice, the medical community raised a furor, and the doctor accused of the unauthorized organ transplant is now threatening the show with legal action.

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But most Indians seem to share the view of Shekhar Gupta, the editor in chief of the Indian Express, who believes that the show's emphasis on social justice compensates for its shortcomings. "The most important thing is that people are now willing to talk about what's wrong with them," he told me. And Mr. Khan "holds a mirror up to the society; that's a remarkable thing."

The success of "Truth Alone Prevails" is very much a function of India's rising prosperity over the past decades. Since the early 1990s, a middle class of several hundred million has emerged, and its members are increasingly willing to voice their outrage over the familiar tragedies of life in India. Among them, "Truth Alone Prevails" has an almost religious appeal. As one blogger wrote, in response to media criticism of the show, "If someone tries to do something good for the society, you guys could not bear it.... People need someone to follow, to show them the right path."

This reaction represents a strange truth about the show (and perhaps about India too): Though all manner of cruelty and casual violence are on display, it is essentially uplifting.

What gives "Truth Alone Prevails" its optimism is the voice of India's new middle class, which is increasingly politically and socially aware, though still unsure of itself and its newfound wealth and security. If the old India of my childhood—which was a far bleaker place—is to be superseded, it will depend on this new class's ability to understand and defend the freedoms that have enriched it. Mr. Khan's achievement has been to use his celebrity to show Indians, with rare clarity and grittiness, how far the country has come, and how far it has yet to go.
—Mr. Taseer's "Stranger to History" will be published this fall by Graywolf. He lives in New Delhi and London.
Corrections & Amplifications
An earlier version of this story said the film '3 Idiots' came out two years ago, but it was released three years ago in 2009.

A version of this article appeared July 7, 2012, on page C3 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: The New Hero of Indian Television.

Is Aamir Khan an Avatar of Krishna?

In his first show, called Satyameva Jayate (truth ultimately triumphs), Aamir Khan brings out different aspects the society to the fore.

What is great about this man, rather a pluralistic man is that he will not let the audience slip into prejudices. First, he shows a family living on the street, if anyone jumps to the conclusion, "o, it is the street people."  Then he goes on to show a Muslim family, you can slip some more on the slope, its the poor and the Muslims... he takes through several levels and makes you fall into an ugly pit full of shit - it was the bloody mother in law who was a rich Doctor who wants her Bahu Doctor to drop the baby in New Delhi! Evil has no religion and no economic levels. If Aamir Khan keeps doing his shows, one day, India will be cleaned up from prejudices of different varieties.  He is a truly a Krishna's avatar. He had said, whenever adharma takes over a tribe, someone will emerge from among them as his avatar and restore Dharma.

Abuse of Sonogram is a big story in India. In its first show, called Satyamev Jayate (truth ultimately triumphs), in May this year, it featured female feticide. The show has turned India upside down and new laws are being passed to prevent the abuse. A salesman sells the sonogram machine to the Doctors as an investment that will return their capital in six months, and unchecked income continues after that by performing abortions - not male babies but female babies. Guardian reports 6 million girl abortions in the last decade in India, reconfirmed by ABC news i.e., aborting 50,000 female babies a month.

In the sting operation, one doctor asks; if the baby does not die thru aborticides, what should be done, the other says, throw it in the river when it comes out. Yes, it is disgusting and heart wrenching to watch. This, one particular evil has led to disproportionate ratio of men and women to a point of sharing the wife with brothers and friends or selling one’s wife to the highest bidder.

The good news is that the prophecy of Krishna is relevant, in Bhagvad Gita IV-7 Krishna narrates to Arjuna: “Whenever Dharma, or the situation of law and order, is endangered on this world, I incarnate onto this world to re establish Dharma, law and order, and to protect good and destroy the evil elements of the society.” The movie actor Aamir Khan is indeed an incarnation of Krishna in mitigating the evil of female feticide, dowry, child abuse, and other evils of the Indian society.

Texas Faith is a weekly column at Dallas Morning News managed by Editors William McKenzie and Wayne Slater, and the material is contributed by several panelists including Mike Ghouse.

For all the other responses visit:

http://religionblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2012/06/texas-faith-is-knowing-a-fetus.html

How much information is enough? The New York Times reported last week that researchers have discovered that performing simple tests on parents can lead to an understanding of almost the entire genome of a fetus. By taking a blood sample from a pregnant woman and a saliva specimen from the father, experts can let parents know virtually all the DNA of a child before it is born.

As the Times reported, thousands of genetic diseases could be detected. In the not-so-distant future, parents could pay an affordable price to get that information, too.

But this breakthrough also raises complicated ethical issues. On the one hand, parents could be more ready for the challenges that await them. Yet will this lead to more abortions, including of children whose parents don't like the DNA profile?

Undoubtedly, we all like information. But you could argue the creation story in Genesis shows the risks that come in acquiring knowledge.

Is this one of those instances? Is this discovery taking medical knowledge too far?

MIKE GHOUSE, President, Foundation for Pluralism, Dallas

We have come a long way in accepting things we would not have accepted each previous decade or a century. Whether it is ethics, morality, civility, religion, science or medical knowledge, we have accepted the new information despite the initial resistance.

There was a time, when saving a life was considered evil, it was considered against the will of God, and we battle that even today. In 2010, 70 children died in Zimbabwe, because of the religious opposition to vaccination. The religious tolerance organization reports that an average of one sick child a month dies in the United States from denied medical attention.

Discovering medical knowledge is not going too far. It is indeed beneficent in living a better life. The problem is not with the knowledge; but with the abuse of it, which will always be there as a part of the whole. We should not resist new research for the fear of its abuse. Let the benefits to society at large determine our research and not the abuse.

We might consider a requirement of ethical dimension and abuse prevention in the research proposals before they are submitted and funded.

Nuclear power in the right hands is a blessing, but a hell in the hands of evil men. Religion in the right hearts is a mercy to mankind, but a hell for others in the wrong hands. Evil men are not a separate group; they are among us, within each one of the faiths, races, and nationalities. As a society, we have to prevent abuse, but must welcome research.

Abuse of sonograms is a big story in India. The Guardian reports 6 million girl abortions in the last decade in India, reconfirmed by ABC news i.e., aborting 50,000 female babies a month. The good news is there is a strong movement to stop this and laws are being passed.

Unless we discuss the ethics of what parents can or cannot do with the knowledge of a DNA child before it is born, we will never be able to deal with it. With the new knowledge of a difficult DNA child, we will also develop techniques in re-aligning a few, if not all of the defects. We must not withhold the good from those who benefit from the DNA research.

A Doctor friend of mine is teaching stem cell research in Australian and European Universities, and sees the value of the research in terms of improved quality of life for many, in the United States we are still struggling with it. I'd rather struggle and place things in order before we embark on it. It is the American way; infrastructure first.

We have dealt with Dr. Kevorkian, Terry Schiavo and many other ethical issues and we will continue to do with resistance. We are indeed better off today, living a little better and little longer due to the research in medicine.

Other pieces on Aamir Khan:
Aamir Khan is God sent http://theghousediary.blogspot.com/2012/05/aamir-khan-is-god-sent.html

Aamir Khan, the new Social Hero of India
http://theghousediary.blogspot.com/2012/05/aamir-khan-new-social-hero-of-india.html

CRITICAL ADD ONS:

WAS

Khursheed,

Shirk/ Incarnation

My apologies for lack of clarity in my piece about Aamir Khan. Each one of us has an obligation to resist the temptation to judge a statement or a person, I should have clarified more.

Personally, I don't believe in reincarnation, we are here once as person in flesh and are gone forever. However, on this topic; using the civil language of Sura Kafirun, I must add that, "Muslims don’t believe in what Hindus believe, and Hindus don’t believe in what Muslims believe" when it comes to life after this life, and we don't have. To you is your religion and to me is my religion. Kindly note, God did not condemn the other religion, not one word, he taught us how to be civil in putting the other religion and our religion on Par. Read the Sura again.

As a person committed to seeing the essence of each religion, I see the reincarnation (Hindu) and Life after death (Muslim) as a common value to mould one’s behavior. One does not want be born again less than human, and the other does not want a painful here after and prefers azab-less life. In both instances, reincarnation or life after death, serve the same purpose; behavior modification, to avoid a difficult continuum after this life.

When I wrote, “The movie actor Aamir Khan is indeed an incarnation of Krishna,” and then wrote, “in mitigating the evil of female feticide, dowry, child abuse, and other evils of the Indian society.” The word incarnation was used in its broadest meaning - playing the role of. It is like saying, “my Grand Son talks just like my father” or “Amitabh Bachchan gestures look like like Dilip Kumar’s” or Dev Anand appeared at times like Gregory Peck… The role Aamir Khan is playing fits the ideal role that Krishna played - in removing the evil.

I hope this gives some clarification. I am a strong believer in oneness of creator, creation and humanity.

Jazak Allah Khair

Mike Ghouse