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'Big Two' of Indian Films – Close-ups of Dilip Kumar and Raj Kapoor

28 Apr, 2026 | Archival Reproductions by Cinemaazi

It was Oscar Wilde who once said: "As a rule, people who act lead the most commonplace lives."

Obviously, Wilde was more concerned with the shaping of a well-turned epigram rather than its truth, for a comparative study of those top celluloid idols, Dilip Kumar and Raj Kapoor, points to the fact that there is scarcely anything commonplace about their lives.

Theirs is a magical influence, able as they are to sway the emotions, mould the thought processes, fashion the dress tastes, hair styles, mannerisms, ideas, sentiments and behaviour patterns of their followers whose number is legion.

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Dilip and Raj, around whom many a legend has grown, give expression on the screen to two basic human emotions: One makes the audience cry; the other makes it laugh.

Dilip Kumar made his first major screen appearance in a film called "Milan" in 1947. Raj Kapoor played his first big role In "Neel Kamal" in 1946. Both had played incidental roles before.

Contemporaries in the fullest sense of the word, they appeared on the Indian film horizon at the same time and rose, over a period of a mere eight years, to become the topmost personalities of the Indian screen.

With the possible exception of leading politicians, it would be safe to say that no two public figures have exercised more sway over more Indians than the one who vicariously satisfies the tragic human emotions and the other who clowned his way across the sub-continent in an uproarious new definition of comedy which consists of grimacing, monkeying and hustling its spectator-participants into a condition of prolonged jubilance.

They gave expression to two basic human emotions. One made the nation cry; the other made it laugh.

The egoistical excesses of that self-styled genius, Orson Welles, once impelled a soured columnist to remark: "There, but for the grace of God, goes God." But, as Welles himself often fondly proclaims quoting Wilde, "I have nothing to declare except my genius," it is evident that all Thespians, be they small or great in dramatic stature, model themselves along these lines of flamboyant exhibitionism.

No less true is this of the exhibitionistic excesses of Raj Kapoor or the fantastic tales of romantic indulgences adorning the legend of Dilip Kumar, both of whom, not quite unconsciously, have perpetuated the tradition of romanticism.

The Legend Grew

The legend did not take long to grow round these clever showmen, both endowed with a tremendous ego and histrionic talent of an exceptional order.

Within the tour walls of their homes and studios, however, these actors have different facets to reveal, facets far more interesting in the human context than the legend they present the world.

Both have much in common. Both were born in December at Peshawar - Dilip on December 11, 1923, and Raj on December 14, a year later. Both went to the same school, both had the same friends and, in later years, both were to enter the same profession.

But there the resemblance ends. Even as far back as their schooldays, the resemblance ended just there. From the first, Raj was the cocksure youngster, brimming with youthful over-confidence and drawn irresistibly to canalise his histrionic bent on stage and screen.

Dilip, on the other hand, was always self-effacing and retiring by nature, an introvert as against Raj, the extrovert. So much so in fact, that he used to refuse to take part in school theatricals. "I'll drop dead from sheer fright!" he would tell Raj.

The urge for expression which revealed itself in the form of exhibitionism in Raj, the buoyant show-off, was a hidden malady slowly eating away the heart of Dilip, the studious introvert. Each, in his own way, had to become an actor.

If, in their early twenties, Raj was a strutting spectator on the cricket-fields, with unkempt hair, sporting a pair of goggles that had only one arm fitting over a single ear, and Dilip sat at home reading Sartre, it did not mean that the same superhuman urge did not impel them both, although from opposite ends as it were, making them, with their contrary natures and radically opposite approaches to the histrionic art, two sides of the same priceless coin.

Thrown constantly together in the midget world of films, these two were soon to stride out, outpacing their lesser contemporaries, and assume a dual leadership which often expressed itself in keen competition and a smouldering, sometimes unapparent, rivalry.

That is why, in more ways than one, Mehboob's "Andaz" was a significant picture. Not only was it the first movie to gain for the Indian film a Hollywood standard of technique and artistry, but in it Raj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar appeared together for the first and only time of their careers.

"Andaz" was released in March, 1949. A huge box office success (it was also a noteworthy film), it breathed below the surface the state of tension and conscious rivalry that must have existed between the Thespians, both intensely aware of the fact that here lay a contest that must come talent's way but once in a lifetime.

Every actor's trick, known and unknown, every subterfuge of scene-stealing, every device of action, under-acting and over-acting was employed by these two in an all-out "prestige effort."

The way both actors filled their roles was also significant for the emergence of Raj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar as they are known today.

For Dilip, the introvert, it was the beginning of maturity, when histrionism must come from a mystic fusion of brain and heart, when there must be an economy of physical movement, when a gesture, an expression, a flutter of the eyelids, a look, a vocal intonation, must do the work of a hundred spoken words and the tiresome bodily substitutes of acting.

For his contemporary, Raj, it was the emergence of an individualised set of mannerisms overdone for effect with flamboyant gestures, facial expressions and physical movements. Later these were frozen into a highly stylised pattern. It had the impact of newness and seemed to overshadow the underplay and subtlety of Dilip by its very ebullience and overplay.

After "Andaz", the path of the two actors bifurcates. A wider field of literary study and concentration on the intricacies of histrionics occupied Dilip Kumar, while Raj Kapoor embarked on the phase which was to bring him his greatest recognition.

A year before "Andaz," Raj Kapoor's first film "Aag," produced, directed and acted by him, was a moderate success. A year after, in March 1950, Raj's second film '"Barsaat," produced, directed and acted by him, made headlines as a box-office hit and became the springboard of an outstanding career in film making.

Changed Outlook

Single-minded concentration on their work and the widening social consciousness of both led Dilip on the one hand to observe that the improvement of films is a corollary to a country's development, economic and otherwise, and caused Raj to grow out of the romantic into the realistic in his concept of creative art. The two qualities were adjuncts to a private life as prosaic or colourful as that of the adolescent collegian or the "man in the street" who idolised them.

With Raj, the obsession was work. Possessing an inordinate capacity for hard work, he ideally fulfilled the observation that genius meant an infinite capacity for taking pains and, in the passionate drive of creation, would pass whole weeks in a round-the-clock effort, remaining unshaven, living on innumerable cigarettes-and his nerves.

Dilip, reaching the consummation of histrionic art by painful degrees, withdrew more and more into himself-living too, on his nerves and enriched, at great price to himself, by the fire of harrowing emotional experience in his personal life from which he emerged a greater human being.

Co-artist Nargis brought a steadying mellowing influence into Raj Kapoor's life. Acting together, they went through a series of mutual adjustments and understanding till the partnership attained the tuned fineness of the "sitar" string.

"A great part is no less great because it is indifferently played," once said that great actress, Tallulah Bankhead. And the greatest parts these two actors have played, or ever will play, were not in any film - but through themselves.

Dilip and Raj sans make-up.
Always on hand for a good cause, they are here discussing plans for a charity drive.

Perhaps because of this, it will not rest with the contemporary scribe to assess the impact of their personalities on the mind of the community, in moulding and conditioning it to a way of behaviour, thought and life. He is too close to view the scene in perspective.

How well each of these artists played his part would lie in the domain of the historian of a passing generation.

This article was published in 'Filmfare' magazine's 21 January 1955 edition. written by Bunny Reuben.
The images and captions are from the original article and Cinemaazi archive.

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