Meet superstar who once broke into Dilip Kumar's Mumbai home, watched him sleep: 'I believed he was my...'

Veteran superstar Dharmendra was very fond of Dilip Kumar and his love for the actor was so special that he was convinced that they were brothers. Dharmendra and Dilip Kumar are not related but when the former was in college, he thought for sure that they were siblings. Once, during his trip to Mumbai, Dharmendra was so eager to meet Dilip Kumar that he also broke into his home. 

Dharmendra recalled the incident once in Dilip Kumar’s autobiography, Dilip Kumar: The Substance and the Shadow. He wrote, "For some inexplicable reason I began to fancy that Dilip Kumar and I were siblings."

Dharmendra recalled how he once entered Dilip Kumar's bungalow as there was no security at his gate. "I wasn’t stopped at the gate by anybody, and so I walked right into the house through the main door. There was a wooden staircase leading to a bedroom upstairs. Again, nobody stopped me, so I climbed up the stairs and stood at the entrance to one of the rooms," he said. 

Dharmendra further revealed how he saw a “fair, slim, handsome" Dilip Kumar sleeping on the couch. But soon, Dilip Kumar “woke up somewhat startled" when he felt his presence in his home. "He sat up and stared at me, quite taken aback to see a total stranger standing gingerly at his bedroom door gazing admiringly at him. As for me, I couldn’t believe my eyes: It was Dilip Kumar, my idol, in front of me. He called out to a servant loudly. Now scared, I ran down the staircase and bolted out of the house looking behind to see if I was being followed."

Dharmendra said that once he realised he was in a safe space, he looked back on his irresponsible move. "I realised how reckless I had been by intruding into the privacy of a star. So what if there was no watchman at the gate and no family member in the house to stop me?"

Many years after the incident, Dharmendra got a chance to meet Dilip Kumar's sister after he won a talent competition. "I saw her leaving and I ran after her requesting her to [arrange to] meet Dilip Sahab. I told her I firmly believed that he was my brother too," Dharmendra said.

“When I was leaving, he (Dilip Kumar) took me upstairs to his room and gave me a sweater from his cupboard because it was a bit chilly and he had noticed I was wearing just a thin cotton shirt. He hugged me and saw me off at the gate. I can still feel the warmth of that hug because it was genuine," Dharmendra recalled.

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