When Kamal Haasan Wanted To Cast Dilip Kumar And Shah Rukh As Father-Son

The mighty Dilip Kumar who would have been 101 years old today, December 11, came close to working with Shah Rukh Khan, whom both Dilip Saab and his wife Saira Banu treated as their son.

It was Kamal Haasan who offered to cast the two Khans (Dilip Kumar's real name is Mohammed Yusuf Khan) together in a remake of Thevar Magan, the Tamil classic featuring Tamil cinema’s Dilip Kumar, Sivaji Ganesan and Kamal Haasan, thereby foregoing the pleasure and honour of working with his idol.

Recalled Kamal Haasan, “I thought Dilip Saab was not comfortable with the Tamil-Brahmin ambience of the original. So I offered to turn the father and son’s characters to Pathans and cast Shah Rukh Khan as Dilip Saab’s son. But he still declined. He found the theme too violent. And he had sworn never to do violent films.”

The ultimate method actor who regaled audiences with his pitch-perfect performances in Bimal Roy’s Devdas, Nitin Bose’s Ganga Jumna and K Asif’s Mughal-E-Azam couldn’t bring himself to do violent roles and films.

Revealed Kamalji, “As a child, he had witnessed the savagery and brutality of the Partition in his home town in Peshawar. His family was butchered. He escaped the bloodshed by hiding under a bed without food and water for many days. And you know what kept him alive? A little sparrow that had perched itself near his hiding place and reminded him there was life outside. But Yusuf Saab could never face violence after that even on screen.”

In the same interview conducted several years ago Kamal Haasan was very upset with the awesome Dilip Kumar for giving up too early. “He had no right to retire so early. I think he gave up 40 years too early, thereby depriving us of many path-breaking performances that may have happened if he hadn’t lost interest. But what he has done in the past is staggering. Mughal-E-Azam and Ganga Jumna make my jaws drop every time I view them. I can’t see a single flaw in his performance. Best actor this country has ever produced? Hands down! He is beyond a national treasure.”