MUMBAI, India — In her memoir, the late veteran actress Kamini Kaushal offered rare insight into her early relationship with screen legend Dilip Kumar, reflecting on a bond that both described as deep, meaningful, and ultimately heartbreaking.
Kaushal, who died at 98, wrote candidly about the emotional toll of parting ways with Kumar. She said the two were “very happy with each other” and shared a strong rapport, but circumstances — including her family responsibilities — forced her to end the relationship.
“We were both shattered. We were very happy with each other. We shared a great rapport. But that’s life,” she wrote. “I couldn’t dump people and say, ‘Enough now, I’m going!’ I had taken on the girls. I wouldn’t be able to show my face to my sister. My husband, a fine human being, understood why it happened. Everyone falls in love.”
Her remarks referred to her early marriage and the responsibility she assumed for her late sister’s daughters, a commitment she said she could not abandon.
Dilip Kumar, in his own biography, acknowledged his feelings for Kaushal, calling her his first love. He later reflected on that phase of his life in Bunny Reuben’s biography Dilip Kumar – Star Legend of Indian Cinema. “She was the only one with whom I achieved total identification,” he said. “I think everybody falls in love only once. ‘Again’ — if there is an ‘again’ — is merely an imitation of the brilliant flame, the blinding light, the days of trance, the nights of impatience and waiting, and days of such happiness that one cannot believe they will last.”
Kumar and Kaushal worked together in three films — Shaheed, Shabnam, and Nadiya Ke Paar. Though Kumar rarely spoke publicly about the relationship, writer Ismat Chughtai had once revealed that he was deeply in love with Kaushal. (Source: IANS)
