Dev Anand: The Immortal of Indian Cinema

I am not a film expert and I have never met Dev Anand. At the time when I was born, Dev Anand was a 60 year old man, the age of my grandfather. 

Yet, today when I have come to know of the news of his death I am sad. There are legions of his fans who share the same emotion like me. Everyone loved him even if everyone did not love the movies that he did recently.

 

Does it matter? No. Because Dev Anand lived his life on his own terms. Like in one of his songs, “Gham aur khushi mein fark na mahsus ho jaha, mein dil ko us makam pe lata chala gaya.” He and his films are above comparison. To be honest, even though I belong to the age of fast paced films, he will remain my favourite actor ever.

The first movie of his that I saw was Jewel Thief much to the insistence of my mother. To my mother, he is the best actor and the most handsome man after my father.

After I watched Jewel Thief, I went into another world. A world of movies that was indeed better than the one I was living in. All the songs, and especially ‘Aasman ke neeche’, appealed to my ears and the way he wooed the beautiful Vyjayanthimala  in that song made a non-romantic guy like me feel for once to fall in love. That was his power. To make you feel the way ‘he’ wanted. One by one, I started watching his movies.  

Thus, I saw the entrapped detective in CID, the indifferent husband in Tere Mere Sapne, the longing brother in Hare Rama Hare Krishna and the titular character of the iconic Guide.

Indeed I discovered that Dev Anand stood above all other actors of his era and the present one too. Talking about era, Dev Anand is the only actor who looked dapper in both black & white and colour films.

In 1965 Dev Anand acted in Teen Deviyan (a B&W film) and Guide (a colour), making him the only actor to have done so in the same year. Both were successful but Guide went notches higher to become a benchmark in Indian cinema.

With Guide, Dev saab (as he was popularly called) won his second Filmfare award. His first had come in 1958 with Kalapani.

As an actor extraordinaire, Dev Anand was the only Hindi film star who delivered blockbusters over three decades in three different images. As a man extraordinaire, Dev saab was the epitome of positive energy.

With his death from a cardiac arrest in London on Saturday, India lost a glittering star that illuminated the country’s cinema landscape for over 50 years. The whole of Bollywood has gone into a state of mourning. Amitabh Bachchan has himself admitted that he has left a void that cannot be filled. True.

When Dev Anand began his film career, it was a year before India got its Independence. His debut movie, Hum Ek Hain, was under the then famous banner of Prabhat Talkies in 1946. Though the film was a flop, he went on climbing the ladder of success with movies like Ziddi, Baazi, Paying Guest, Munimji, CID, Jaal and many more.

His friendship with Guru Dutt produced three biggies that redefined cinema of the 50s – Baazi, Jaal and CID. Their partnership was like the one that Martin Scorsese and Leonardo Di Caprio share today.     

Another of his friends was Kishore Kumar who sang a number of hit songs for his movies. Who doesn’t loves to hum ‘Ye dil na hota bechara’ or ‘Khwab ho tum ya koi haqueekat’ or even ‘Phoolon ke rang se’?

Songs were a speciality of Dev Anand films. Mohammed Rafi delivered hits like 'Main zindagi ka saath' and 'Abhi na jao chorkar'. 'Din dhal jaaye' and 'Tere mere sapne' from Guide are classics that are not made today.

 

He was a very educated man of his times having acquired a degree in English Literature from the prestigious Government College in Lahore, Pakistan. He started working for the military censor office in Bombay. His older brother Chetan was already associated with theatre. He joined in and soon got his entry in the world of cinema.

From 1946 to the year of his death, Dev Anand remained active in Indian cinema. He was one of those titans who saw the complete evolution of Hindi film industry. He was there when Bombay was ‘handmaking’ movies. He was also there when Bombay became Bollywood and is belting out movies, both sensible and senseless, at a mechanical speed.

Frankly speaking, it was Dev Anand who introduced India and Indian cinema to fashion. The clothes he wore have been different in each of his films. The hats, the scarves, the hairstyle, the suit and the shirt, everything was unique and looked perfect on him.

Believe me, if Sherlock Holmes were to be made in Hindi, only Dev Anand would have looked best in the ace detective’s trademark deerstalker. An iconic picture in Jewel Thief is proof of it.

The great actor held on his own fort in the presence of giants like Dileep Kumar, Raj Kapoor, Rajendra Kumar and Rajesh Khanna.

His carved out his own image that of an actor with a distinct head-nodding, a slightly tilted way of walk, a smile with a little shake of head, expressive eyes and of course his unmatched acting prowess. No wonder then that the ladies of those days went weak in their knees at the sight of Dev Anand.

Yes, I also came to know that he picked up the head-nodding style from Hollywood legend Gregory Peck but I have also seen Guns of Navarone of the latter and found that Dev Anand was in an altogether different league. What he did was what only he could do. That’s why he was honoured with the Dada Saheb Phalke in 2002.

He took to directing movies early in his career and gave cult classics like Hara Rama Hare Krishna and Prem Pujari. The music of the former was so ahead of its era that a recent release titled itself on the lead song of that film. The new one was, however, disappointing and crass.

As a fan I personally feel that no film of Dev Anand should be remade as it will for sure destroy the beauty of the original. The romantic image of Dev Anand is unparalleled even to this day and it should be allowed to remain untouched.

I had a hidden desire to meet him. He was a man who delivered flops one after the other in recent times but continued doing films purely because he loved doing it. In my opinion he was the man who ideally followed the principle of the Bhagvad Gita: “Karam karo, phal ki chinta mat karo” (do your work, don’t worry about the result). Perhaps this is why he became an immortal.  

Since he was a man who with a never say die attitude, I will suppress my grief as a mark of respect to the icon and only say – “Jivan ke safar mein rahi, milte hai bichar jaane ko, aur de jaate hai yadein, tanhai mein tarpane ko….o ho, o ho, o ho, o ho, oho oho.”

RIP Dev Anand sir