Some fifty-four years ago a strapping young man from the hills of Baluchistan in Pakistan wandered all the way to Bombay without knowing what he was going to do in Bombay but only knowing that Bombay was a land of opportunities and dreams (Bombay was a state then which included the whole of Maharashtra and Gujarat.) The young man’s name was Raaj Kumar.

His education and his personality helped him find a job as a Police Inspector and soon stories about his bravery as a police officer were as popular as the stories of the Daya Nayaks and Pradeep Sawants of today. He was a popular officer with the potential to rise high but he wanted popularity of another kind. He secretly nursed the ambition to be a part of the Hindi films.

Raaj Kumar, the name was first heard when he found a small role in a film called “Rangeeli” made in 1952 in which the heroine, Rehana was the better known name with the better role. He was offered a number of other small films in the years to come but he first came into the limelight when the legendary Mehboob Khan offered him a small but significant role in “Mother India”. He played the coward husband of Nargis who deserts him and their two little sons who grow up to become Rajendra Kumar and Sunil Dutt who were two other struggling actors waiting for big breaks. The role if played by any other actor could have been just another walk in and walk out role but there was something about Raaj Kumar’s performance that made it memorable, certainly not as memorable as the roles of Nargis and Sunil Dutt but he was marked out as a young actor who could be depended on to play powerful characters.