Pakistan highlights Bollywood links with Raj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar museum project in Peshawar
- Raj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar were born in Peshawar before the partition of India in 1947. They found fame during the 1950s and 60s in Bollywood
- Their sprawling but dilapidated ancestral homes are now set to become museums as part of a project to revive the city’s cultural heritage
The film stars’ former houses, which were built in the early 20th century, stand a few metres apart on the same street in the heart of the old city, but are both in dire need of repair.
Since being declared national heritage sites in 2014, interest in their conservation has peaked – resulting in the provincial government of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, where Peshawar is located, allocating funds to purchase the two homes and renovate them as museums.
“Peshawar has a special place in film history,” said Abdul Samad, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province’s director of archaeology and museums. “However, over the last few decades, its reputation has taken a knock due to militancy resulting in the erosion of the city’s architectural and archaeological heritage.”
Kapoor and Kumar were born in Peshawar in the 1920s, before the partition of India in 1947 that resulted in the birth of Pakistan.