THE LOVE AFFAIR BETWEEN DILIP AND MADHUBALA
A change began to come over Madhubala, imperceptible at first but quite apparent to those who knew her. A friend described it thus: "In 1951, when I first knew her, she was always smiling, always gay. I envied her peace of mind. By 1958, the beauty was still there but the peace of mind had vanished."
The same year, Filmfare observed: 'Her laughter is a becoming quality, not only because she comes to life as it were when she laughs but because a smile is the most charming cloak for a sob... Madhubala has had her share of struggle, suffering, disillusionment and emotional shock but no matter what lies beneath the surface she cloaks it with a graceful smile.'
Madhubala remained with her family. Her love for Dilip remaining unchanged, the decision that she felt impelled to take proved to be a singular mistake of judgement, for it robbed her of her health, her happiness and her peace of mind. For a girl as loving and emotional as she was, the decision was suicidal.
For the next few years, she followed the time-honoured antidote for heartbreak and, turning to her work, tried to forget her troubles. She had the satisfaction of working in a number of highly successful films like Kala Pani, Howrah Bridge, Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi and Barsaat Ki Raat On the personal front, she made an admirable bid to maintain a facade of normalcy, but a wastefulness and a lost look began to lurk just under the surface, and the fabulous smile no longer reached her eyes. "She must have been miserable, but she wouldn't show it," comments Sushila Rani Patel. "An ethereal beauty," noted Gulshan Ewing, "whose eyes were always sad, but whose lips were always smiling." But in the presence of long-time colleagues or in the privacy of her make-up room, there were times when sobs racked Madhubala. . It seemed the pair continued to pine for each other far after their break up, Dilp Kumar a crushed man slipped to alcohol, and eventually married Saira Bano Bharat Bhushan, Pradeep Kumar, and Kishore Kumar proposed her to. She eventually married the latter of the three, she and Kishore Kumar argued and bickered constantly, plunged into a loveless marriage with him Madhubala soon realized that she had made a mistake in marrying him, as she truly loved and desperately wanted to marry Dilip.