A Love Story Like None Other: Saira Banu And Dilip Kumar

There are so many love stories which are no less than a fairytale. They make you believe in true love. Actress Saira Banu and actor Dilip Kumar have such a story.

Here are 8 things to know about their love story.

1. Saira Banu fell in love with Dilip Kumar when she was 12 years of age. She said in an interview, “I was not just another girl smitten by Dilip Kumar. For me, it was no castle in the air because I had given my dream the strong foundation of faith- faith in myself and faith in God.”
2. When the premier of Dilip’s superhit movie Muhal-E-Azam took place in Maratha Mandir of Mumbai, Banu, then 16, had gone to watch the show and get a glimpse of Kumar. She was heartbroken when she couldn’t see him.
3. Banu remembers the very first time she met Kumar. She said in an interview, “When he smiled at me and remarked that I was a pretty girl, I could feel my whole being taking wing and flying rapturously. I knew somewhere deep within me that I was going to be his wife.”
4. Saira Banu’s mother Naseem Banu played the role of a cupid in their love story. She made Saira and Dilip realize they were made for each other and helped them get closer.
5. Dilip proposed Saira for marriage while they were out on a drive in Mumbai. She was 22 years of age. Kumar was 44. The couple has an age gap of 22 years. Nevertheless, they got married in the year 1976.
6. Many people believed that the couple’s relationship would soon fall apart because of the age difference. They have been together for more than four decades now, proving their invincible and indomitable love for each other.
7. Their marriage went through a rough patch in the 1980s, when Dilip Kumar got in a controversial love affair with Asma, a Pakistani lady. Two years later, Dilip broke up with Asma and came back to Saira. Amidst all this, the couple did not divorce and stood beside each other which some describe as the greatest strength of their marriage.
8. Saira thanks Allah every single day to have been blessed with actor Dilip Kumar as a husband, whom she lovingly refers to as ‘My Kohinoor’. As for Dilip Kumar, he still remembers the time he fell in love with Saira. He wrote in his memoir, The Substance and The Shadow about this moment. “When I alighted from my car and entered the beautiful garden that leads to the house, I can still recall my eyes falling on Saira standing in the foyer of her new house looking breathtakingly beautiful in a brocade sari”. Kumar was taken aback because she looked beautiful than he thought she was. He stepped forward and shook her hand and for them time stood still.

Shivangi Thapa is an intern with SheThePeople.Tv