Kishore Kumar: The iconic singer who hated acting and dreamed of Khandwa

Though Kishore Kumar conquered Indian cinema with his legendary voice and diverse on-screen roles, few know how much he despised the world of acting.



In a 1985 interview with journalist Pritish Nandy, two years before his death, Kishore opened up about his lifelong yearning, not for the spotlight, but for a quiet life in Khandwa, the land of his ancestors.


Kishore Kumar wanted to get out of the rat race

“Who can live in this stupid, friendless city where everyone seeks to exploit you every moment of the day?” he lamented, describing Mumbai as a place of distrust and isolation.


His dream, he said, was simple: “I am determined to get out of this futile rat race and live as I’ve always wanted to, in my native Khandwa. Who wants to die in this ugly city?”


“I only wanted to sing. Never to act”


Though lauded for his acting, Kishore Kumar revealed that he never wanted to be an actor at all. “I was conned into it,” he confessed. “I only wanted to sing. Never to act.” But thanks to circumstances and industry pressure, Kishore found himself acting in films, something he loathed deeply. He admitted trying every trick to escape: flubbing lines, behaving oddly on set, shaving his head, even deliberately mixing up scenes and dialogues. Yet, filmmakers wouldn’t let him go. “They were just determined to make me a star,” he said. A big reason, he added, was his identity as the brother of legendary actor Ashok Kumar (Dadamoni), which only increased industry expectations.



“It evoked nightmares of school”


Despite his hatred for acting, Kishore became one of the biggest draws in Hindi cinema after Dilip Kumar. But the experience, he said, was anything but glamorous. “There were so many films I was doing that I had to run from one set to the other, changing on the way — my shirts flying off, my wig coming loose, my trousers falling down,” he laughed. Often, he would mess up emotions: looking angry in a love scene or romantic during a fight. “It evoked nightmares of school,” Kishore shared, comparing directors to schoolteachers barking orders. It was this suffocating routine that made him long, more than anything, for the peace and simplicity of his hometown.


The iconic singer breathed his last on October 13, 1987 at the age of 58.

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