THE LOVE AFFAIR BETWEEN DILIP AND MADHUBALA
Dilip Kumar and Madhubala were both very private persons, and their meetings were away from the public eye. 'They went out for drives after shooting', said a friend, 'or she picked him up on her way to the studios. She'd sound the horn and he came out and joined her. She did not enter his house. It looked very much like they'd get married any day. When Dilip Kumar married Saira Banu [in October 1966] she did not like it.'
The perceptive Nadira saw it too: 'She considered herself married to him. They were almost married. She wore his ring, he wore hers.' Dilip Kumar himself acknowledged it in a statement to a newspaper, saying a proposal had been sent from him. A film journalist of the time, Ram Aurangabadkar, reported that Dilip Kumar sent his eldest sister, Badi appa, to Madhubala's house with a marriage proposal, saying they'd like it to be in seven days. Ataullah Khan refused.
Emotional to a fault, guileless in the bargain, she was simply not equipped to deal with the shock of the break-up. Speaking of her, Nadira once remarked: 'She had not a strain of pettiness, of anything small. That girl did not know anything about hate. She was in love with love. Exuberantly, overflowing with love. She had so much to give.'
The scenario was bizarre. With feelings for each other just as strong, with no other individuals creeping into either of their lives, they persisted in proceeding to destroy their relationship almost as if compelled by forces beyond them. In the space of about five to six years, choosing to become Mrs Kishore Kumar, Madhubala had taken the most irrational decision of her life. The general reaction to her marriage to Kishore Kumar was echoed in Nadira's incredulous disbelief: 'From the sublime to the ridiculous! Oh my God! Madhu what are you doing?
I am very emotional. I have always lived my life with my heart. For that I have suffered more than is necessary. I have been hurt.
She expressed her desire to see Dilip the day before she died.