Hindi cinema’s most famous unfinished love story has an unusual last chapter. Madhubala and Dilip Kumar never married, but they lie almost side by side in Mumbai’s Juhu.
“They are buried very close to each other,” says Madhur Bhushan, Madhubala’s sister. “Just five to 10 metres apart.”
Madhur has spent decades as the keeper of her sister’s memory. In a recent conversation with Vickey Lalwani, she set out to correct one version of that story that has circulated for years.
‘The statement is completely wrong’
Veteran actress Mumtaz once suggested in an interview that Dilip Kumar walked away after learning that Madhubala had a heart condition and could not have children. Madhur rejects that account outright.
A collapse on set and a diagnosis
Madhur is not entirely sure when the illness began. At one point she linked it to Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi (1958). But the first warning sign she describes happened on the set of Bahut Din Huwe, released in 1954, where Madhubala fainted and vomited blood for the first time.
“When we visited the doctor, they said we feel there is something wrong in the chest,” Madhur recalled. She admitted the film titles blur together for her: “I don’t remember these film names as Abba didn’t allow all this.”
Madhubala was shooting in Chennai at the time. She travelled to Bombay for tests and was told she had a hole in her heart. “No doctor in Bombay was capable to treat her as technology wasn’t so advanced then. It was a complicated surgery,” Madhur said.
The final months
Madhur’s most painful memories come from the very end. The family lived in the same Bandra house, on different floors. When Madhubala’s condition turned critical, Ataullah Khan phoned Kishore Kumar to tell him she might die at any moment. According to Madhur, Kishore replied that he had an outdoor shoot and his tickets were booked. He came only after her father pleaded with him.
“She couldn’t speak when she was sick. She had lost her speech about four months before death. Her lips had become blue,” Madhur said. “She was breathing her last and she died.”
Madhubala died in 1969, aged 36.
The first love that stayed
In those last weeks, Madhur moved into her sister’s room to nurse her, and it was there that Madhubala confided in her. “She told me she cannot forget Yusuf Sahab,” Madhur said, using Dilip Kumar’s birth name, Yusuf Khan.
Madhur doesn’t see that as a betrayal of anyone. “It is impossible to forget your first love, and if somebody claims they have, then they are lying about it.”
Dilip Kumar’s memoir describes a final meeting that fits with what Madhur says. Shortly after he married Saira Banu in 1966, Madhubala sent word asking to see him urgently. With Saira’s encouragement, he went. He found her frail, her famous smile now an effort, and he wrote that she told him she was happy her “prince” had found his “princess.”
Three years later she was gone. Today, the two rest just metres apart.
Lakshana is an entertainment and lifestyle journalist with over a decade of experience. She covers a wide range of stories—from community and health to mental health and inspiring people features.
A passionate K-pop enthusiast, she also enjoys exploring the cultural impact of music and fandoms through her writing.