Veteran actress Saira Banu celebrated her engagement anniversary with the legendary actor Dilip Kumar by sharing an emotional note that reflects their timeless love. She described their bond as one rooted in unwavering faith and surrender.
Saira took to Instagram to post a series of monochrome pictures from their engagement day, bringing back cherished memories.
Reflecting on that special day, she wrote: “What, indeed, is the purest love, if not faith? A faith so deep in one’s beloved that all inclination to question, to doubt, or to weigh affection upon scales of reason, simply dissolves.”
“It was upon this very day, the 2nd of October, 1966, that my heart bound itself irrevocably to my one true love, my dearest Dilip Sahib. And from that moment, I never questioned, nor did I find reason to. In times of happiness, in seasons of grief, and in the quietude of our everyday hours, I simply loved.”
She shared how Dilip Kumar defined love: “For love, as my Sahib himself once so poignantly declared, ‘Pyaar mein mohabbat hai, mohabbat mein junoon hai, aur junoon mein zindagi’—is not a matter of conditions, but of surrender.”
Describing it as a foundation, Saira added, “It is the very foundation upon which all else rests. It bears no burden, harbours no suspicion, entertains no expectation. Instead, it grants the sweetest liberty of all—the liberty to devote oneself entirely.”
“In that devotion, I discovered the essence of love as it was meant to be: unconditional and enduring, a flame neither time nor circumstance could diminish. And today, when I love back…I see two souls living wholeheartedly, loving solely! Happy Engagement Anniversary to US,” she concluded.
Saira Banu married Dilip Kumar in 1966 when she was 22 and he was 44 years old. They did not have any children. In his autobiography, Dilip Kumar: The Substance and the Shadow, he shared that Saira had conceived in 1972 but faced complications in the pregnancy, resulting in a miscarriage.