Saira Banu debuts on X with Dilip Kumar post on her 81st birthday
Saira Banu debuts on X
with Dilip Kumar post on her 81st birthday
Legendary actress Saira Banu, who has already rung a bell with fans on her Instagram, debuted on X (formerly Twitter) on her 81st birthday. Taking a trip down memory lane with her husband, the late Dilip Kumar, Saira posted pictures on her new X, celebrating her birthday.
In her first post on X, Saira wrote, “Today, as she steps into another year, she wishes to be here with all of you, to talk about Life, to relive Memories and everything that keeps Dilip Sahib close to our hearts.” One picture she posted was a monochrome memory of a young Saira cutting a two-tiered cake. Another picture was of her and Dilip when they were older, cutting a cake together. Saira is smiling widely in both of these pictures.
Saira also posted memories with Dilip through the years on her Instagram. One picture shows them shaking hands, while the other shows her surrounded by loved ones. A video she posted shows Dilip whistling as she cuts a cake, with a shy Lata Mangeshkar standing right next to them.
Sharing these memories, she wrote, “My birthday has always been such a day, not a moment for revelry alone, but it touches every thought and being that has shaped me into the person I am today.”
Saira penned a long note in which she remembered how her grandmother, Shamshad Waheed Khan, mother Naseem Banu, and elder brother Sultan have been the ‘wealth’ she has carried through the years. She then wrote of Dilip, “Yet life, in its true sense, had one more extraordinary gift awaiting me. What began as admiration for an artist admired from afar was, by the tender hand of destiny, transformed into a companionship most rare.”
Talking of her love for him, she added, “The decision to make my home near his was at the time but a matter of circumstance; little did I suspect it to be providence, gently steering my heart toward him.
That a man so revered by the world could look upon me with kindness, and in time with love, remains the greatest wonder of my life.”
She ended the note by thanking everyone who sent wishes her way, adding, “This day, therefore, is not merely a celebration of age, but of love that endures, of memories that soften the edges of time, and of a bond that remains my life’s most cherished story.”
Saira Banu was one of the leading female stars of Hindi cinema in the 60s. She married Dilip Kumar, the reigning superstar, on 11 October 1966, when she was 22 and he was 44. He died in 2021 in Mumbai, at the age of 98. Saira Banu quit films after her marriage, but made a brief comeback in the 70s.
News Edit KV Raman
