Dilip Kumar, Forever Young

By now, since the rumours about veteran actor Dilip Kumar's health have been set to rest, we can happily share the tweet of the day by one of his fans—an iconic photo from the past, that got retweeted as an internet meme:

#dilipkumar pic.twitter.com/Fdpq1g4wid

— xer (@che_gorilla) November 24, 2014

For those who came in late, briefly, as per a report in Sahara Samay, "the rumours of the actor's death started floating on social networking site Twitter with people tweeting that Kumar passed away at Mumbai’s Lilawati Hospital."

While many of those tweets have since been removed, some still very much remain present with the news expressed with certainty:

Dilipkumar died this afternoon. Very big loss to Bollywood. Great soul n great man. May he rest in peace #dilipkumar #legend #RIP

— Jitesh N Jethwa (@Jitz3000) November 24, 2014

The rumours were finally put to rest by Amitabh Bachchan who, incidentally, has also been a victim of such a hoax in the past: 

T 1685 - Some baseless rumours being spread about Yusuf Saheb - Dilip Kumar, being ill .. Saira ji just informed me he is perfectly fine !

— Amitabh Bachchan (@SrBachchan) November 24, 2014

This is not the first time that Dilip Kumar has been killed off on social media. Once before, in 2011, the rumours had resulted in his wife Saira Banu having to put out a formal statement rubbishing the persistent queries.

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Asha Parekh, Ayushmann Khurrana, Bappi Lahiri, Kader Khan, Lata Mangeshkar, Madhuri Dixit-Nene are among those who have had similar experiences of finding such persistent rumours or, to paraphrase Mark Twain, news of their deaths widely exaggerated.

Mr Kumar's official Twitter handle which had been dormant since June also tweeted in the afternoon:

Phone calls from all over the world. All night. Your love and prayers and Allah's blessings cannot be thanked enough,

— Dilip Kumar (@TheDilipKumar) November 25, 2014

There's also a silver lining to the day's events as Mr Kumar also added:

I plan to be regular on this medium. I've asked @faisalMouthshut to post what I dictate and read to me your messages!

— Dilip Kumar (@TheDilipKumar) November 25, 2014