Did You Know? - SALIM DURANI – MIXING CRICKET WITH CINEMA
Did you know of Salim Durani’s lasting contribution to both, the world of cricket and cinema? (Our weekly serving, where we try to highlight quirky, unknown facts from the world of entertainment)
Hits and misses are integral to both the world of cricket and cinema. One of the brightest examples was Salim Durani, who died recently. He made the collar-up shirt style famous as a cricketer along with matinee idol Dev Anand. Dev played the collar-up cricketer in “Love Marriage” opposite Mala Sinha.
Dev Anand asked Salim, “actor banenge?” But it was not Dev who offered him a role. Salim Durani was the hero opposite Parveen Babi only in 1973.
As their titles indicated, both had Pathaan origins, but also Gujarat connections. While Durani was born in Kabul and lived and died in Jamnagar, Parveen Babi belonged to the royalty of erstwhile Junagarh who educated and worked in Ahmedabad.
‘Charitra’ was Babi’s debut film and she became a leading star of her time. But for Durani, everyone concerned with the film was in a hurry to make use of his handsome looks and huge popularity on and off the field. Already in his late thirties, not ready to play the typical “chocolate hero”, Durani did not do a second film.
But he was immensely popular in the Bollywood fraternity – from Ashok Kumar and corner-composer Hemant Kumar to Meena Kumari. It extended to Sivaji Ganesan, Gemini Ganesan, and Savitri, the Kollywood actors of Madras.
A music lover, Durani was a regular at the Press Club of India each time there was a ghazal recital.
But did you know of Durani’s lasting contribution to both, the world of cricket and cinema?
He was known to have introduced Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi, the cricket skipper, to Sharmila Tagore. Respective careers of all three peaked in the late 1960s.
Sharmila Tagore and Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi eventually married and are part of the cricket-cinema legend today. They began the trend that others caught up with. Or, famous affairs that did not necessarily have to lead to matrimony, like Ravi Shastri and Amrita Singh. Of course, Amrita married Pataudi’s son, Saif Ali Khan.
