On the first anniversary of her late husband, actor Dilip Kumar’s death, Saira Banu paid tribute to him. The legendary actor died last year at the age of 98, ending a nearly six-decades-long marriage.
Saira Banu recalled falling in love with the star when she was 12 and feeling privileged to have ‘jumped the long queue of women hoping to be Mrs Dilip Kumar’, as reported in the media. She wrote that not a single day goes by that she doesn’t come across people who don’t remember him, despite her best efforts to’move on.’
“It has been the most difficult year of my life,” she penned in a leading news portal. “Without Dilip saab, my world is meaningless and empty. This is the only reality that I don’t want to come to terms with. There hasn’t been a single day that I have come across people who don’t remember him.”
She wrote that she was able to move on after the deaths of her grandmother, mother, and brother, but she can’t seem to accept the death of her husband. “From the time I wake up, seeing the empty space beside me in the bed we shared for over five and a half decades, till night falls, I have to live with the knowledge that I should consider myself very fortunate that I had my Yousuf saab with me for 56 years.” She went on to say that whenever she sees someone on her staff watching one of Dilip Kumar’s films on television, she leaves the room.
In the final years of Dilip Kumar’s life, Saira Banu would provide regular updates on his health and has always been vocal about her admiration for him. She grieved privately for several months after his death and has made only a few public appearances since.
