Hyderabad, July 8 -- In and out of hospital for the last few months, Dilip Kumar, the thespian, who became a legend in his lifetime, has finally bidden a goodbye, orphaning the Mumbai's filmdom and saddening millions of his fans. In a career spanning over six decades, right from 1943 till 1998, he played lead roles in 41 films, few of them escaped being hits. A dozen others where he figured were either shelved, remain unreleased or abandoned in the middle. He rode like a colossus across the silver screen for nearly four decades and won every conceivable honour reserved for the cine artistes.

Dilip Kumar will be remembered for his debonair personality, radiant face, clipped English and Urdu conversation, linguistic sophistry, elegant sart...