Once Scorned, How Peshawaris Ruled Bollywood

Sameer Arshad Khatlani
Follow on Facebook

When Haider Qadir, the owner of a haveli Bollywood legend Prithviraj Kapoor’s father built in 1920 in Pakistan’s Peshawar, tried to demolish it, his neighbours intervened and had him arrested in January 2016. Qadir was granted bail a day later along with three other accused after cooling his heels overnight in prison. The four faced trial under antiquity law for damaging the three-storey mansion with arched windows and protruding balconies. Pakistan's provincial Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government in 2011 declared the haveli a heritage site along with that of another Peshawar-born actor Dilip Kumar’s ancestral house in Peshawar's Dhakki locality. The move recognised the emotional connect Peshawar has with several Bollywood legends, who were either born or have roots in the city.

ALSO READ: Why Sufism Needs To Return To Its Essence Of Selfless Service

Peshawar has been known as a cultural powerhouse and nursery for Bollywood. Perhaps no other locality has given so many superstars to Bollywood as Peshawar’s Dhakki. In the labyrinth of its streets, ancestral houses of the Kapoors, Dilip Kumar and Shah Rukh Khan remind Peshawaris of their rich cultural heritage. Prithviraj’s son, Raj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar, and Shah Rukh Khan’s father were born and spent their formative years in Dhakki. The locality is part of Peshawar’s iconic Qissa Khwani (storytellers) Bazaar, which American traveller Lowell Thomas has described as Piccadilly of Central Asia. Growing up in the marketplace of storytellers, Prithviraj Kapoor caught attention for his acting talent while studying at Edward College. But it was not easy for him to find feet in Bollywood, where Pashtuns were considered uncouth.

ALSO READ: How Promotion Of Women Education Is Part Of Aligarh Muslim University's Illustrious Legacy

Prithviraj Kapoor opened the floodgates for Peshawaris to make it big in Bollywood in the 1930s. He took up Film India magazine editor Baburao Patel’s challenge after he wrote there is no place in films 'for uncouth brawny Pathans who think they can make it as actors’. Prithviraj told Baburao not to challenge him and vowed to cross seven seas and go to Hollywood to become an actor if there was no place for him in Bollywood. His resolve stood him in good stead as he went on to immortalise himself in Bollywood’s history by playing great Mughal emperor Akbar’s role in iconic Mughal-e Azam.

ALSO READ: Punjabis dominate Pakistan Army but only just

After Prithviraj Kapoor, a succession of Peshawari stars such as Dilip Kumar ruled Bollywood with their killer looks, built, style, dialogue delivery and flair for Urdu. At least four current Bollywood superstars—Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Salman Khan and Saif Ali Khan—have Pashtun heritage, something that was unthinkable when Prithviraj Kapoor was struggling to get into films. Prithviraj Kapoor’s contemporary from Peshawar, Gul Hamid, instantly became all the rage thanks to his stunning looks after featuring in Baghi Sipahi (1936). Hamid died young but Dilip Kumar and Raj Kapoor kept the Peshawari tradition alive by ruling Bollywood for two decades starting 1940s.

ALSO READ: Ignorance About It Is Biggest Crisis Islam Faces

To buy click here 

ALSO READ: How Partition Violence Significantly Reduced Northwest India's Muslim Population

Old-timers in Peshawar remember light-eyed Raj Kapoor as a young boy, who played gulli-danda in the city’s streets before shifting to Mumbai in the 1930s. He occasionally visited his ancestral house till partition. His brother, Shashi Kapoor, and sons, Randhir Kapoor and Rishi Kapoor, visited the haveli in 1990. Dilip Kumar last visited his ancestral house, just metres down the street from the Kapoor mansion, in 1988. Shah Rukh Khan stayed at his father’s house—a stone’s throw from the two havelis— in 1978 and 1979.

ALSO READ: Political Expediency Will Not Let India-Pakistan Thaw Last Too Long

Other Bollywood personalities from Peshawar included Prem Nath, Rajendra Nath, Madhubala, Amjad Khan, Vinod Khanna, and producer Surendra Kapoor, whose son, Anil Kapoor, has maintained the Peshawari moustache tradition. 'It is a very Peshawari and Pathani thing. My father, grandfather were all Pathans from Peshawar…they all wore moustaches and that is why I wear a moustache,’ Anil Kapoor told Pakistan’s Dawn News in 2009. 

This is a slightly edited version of a PakScan column Khatlani wrote for The Times of India, his  former employer, in 2016

Sameer Arshad Khatlani is an author-journalist based in New Delhi. He has been a Senior Assistant Editor with Hindustan Times, India’s second-biggest English newspaper. Khatlani worked in a similar capacity with The Indian Express, India's most influential newspaper known for its investigative journalism, until June 2018. Born and raised in Kashmir, he began his career with the now-defunct Bangalore-based Vijay Times in 2005 as its national affairs correspondent. He joined Times of India, one of the world's largest selling broadsheets, in 2007. Over the next nine years, he was a part of the paper's national and international newsgathering team as an Assistant Editor. 

Khatlani has reported from Iraq and Pakistan and covered elections and national disasters. He received a master’s degree in History from the prestigious Jamia Millia Islamia University in New Delhi. Khatlani is a fellow with Hawaii-based American East-West Center established by the US Congress in 1960 to promote better relations and understanding with Asian, and Pacific countries through cooperative study, research, and dialogue. 

Penguin published Khatlani’s first book The Other Side of the Divide: A Journey into the Heart of Pakistan in February 2020. Eminent academic and King’s college professor, Christophe Jaffrelot, has called the book ‘an erudite historical account... [that] offers a comprehensive portrait of Pakistan, including the role of the army and religion—not only Islam’.