Dilip Kumar’s ancestral property, which is currently in a dilapidated condition, is in present-day Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa region. (Express archive photo by Prakash Yeram)The provincial government in Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa has decided to turn veteran actor Dilip Kumar’s ancestral house into a museum. The decision has been welcomed by the 97-year-old actor who had spent his childhood in the house with his parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins.
Back in 2011, after the Nawaz Sharif government had declared his ancestral home a national heritage, the Mughal-E-Azam actor had written a blog post sharing his memories of the house where he was born in 1922.
Recalling how his mother would spend most of her time in the kitchen, Dilip Kumar wrote, “My mother who was frail and delicate was always in the spacious kitchen of the house and as a little boy I would wait for her to finish her chores so that I could just sit by her side and gaze at her beautiful face.”
The actor shared how his grandmother used to tell him horror stories to stop him from wandering outside the house alone. He also mentioned that his house was always filled with “chatter and hearty laughter” of his family members.
Thank you for sharing this. Requesting all in #Peshawar to share photos of my ancestral house (if you’ve clicked the pic) and tag #DilipKumar https://t.co/bB4Xp4IrUB
— Dilip Kumar (@TheDilipKumar) September 30, 2020
“I have memories of the sitting room where the family gathered for high tea in the evenings, the large room where the ladies prayed, the terrace, the bedrooms, everything. I can vividly recall the piggy rides on my grandfather’s back and the scary stories my grandmother cooked up to forbid me from wandering out of the house alone,” Dilip Kumar had written in his blog.
The celebrated actor credited the storytelling lessons he received at Qissa Khwani Bazaar for being “the impetus to choose meaty stories and scripts” for his work.
“Every day as the trading closed in the market of Qissa Khwani Bazaar, a storyteller would sit in the centre of the square narrating stories of valour and victory, deceit and retribution which I would listen to with wide- eyed attention, seated next to my father and uncles,” recalled Kumar.
Dilip Kumar’s ancestral property, which is currently in a dilapidated condition, is in present-day Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa region. It is located in the Qissa Khwani Bazar area and is over 100 years old.
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