2011 is about to go by and looking back this has been a pretty slow year on a personal front. A lot happened in the country and countries across the world. Arab world seems to have taken to streets to remove despots and autocratic regimes. Though it is a very good thing that people can still, I can’t help but wonder do they have grass root democracy to fill the void or they again will be replaced by bigots and crackpots. North Korea lost a dictator but all practical reasons was replaced by another, Cuba came very close to losing its, however, Fidel Castro is hanging on to life if not to the power itself. Imran Khan has taken a stance in Pakistan and is rallying for the next election even at the cost of being on the side of right wing politicians.
India could have a landmark year if Lokpal bill is passed, at the time of writing the lower house has passed it but the tougher battle is in the upper house. Anna Hazare started a movement on streets with the civil society and then the government was forced into taking some actions. Though we know that there are so many points of views that we would never have a unanimous decision on it but even if it comes close we should be happy. It has been hanging around for 42 years and it was high time we do something about it. In the last few years we have two legislatures which in a decade or so could become the foundation of Indian democracy in RTI and Lokpal. Like everything these would also take its own time to settle down however a redressing mechanism would be set forth.
Every time I see a mass turnout in streets in favour of any kind of revolution, I am reminded of Faiz’s classic, ‘aaj bazaar main pa bajolan chalo’
चश्मेनम जानेशोरिदां काफी नहीं
तोह्मतेइश्क़ पोशीदा काफी नहीं
आज बाज़ार में पबजोलां चलो
दस्त अफशां चलो, मस्त रुख्सां चलो
खाख बरसर चलो, खूं बदमान चलो
राह ताकता है शहरेजना चलो
Chashm-e-nam, jaan-e-shoreeda kafi nahin
Tohmat-e-ishq-posheeda kafi nahin
aaj bazaar main pa-bajolan chalo
Dast afshan chalo, mast-o-raqsan chalo
Khak bar sar chalo, khoon badaman chalo
Rah takta hai sub shehr-e-janaan chalo
Watery eyes and restless soul is not enough,
being charged for nurturing concealed love is not enough,
let us walk in the streets in shackles,
go empty handed, dancing you go,
let the dust get in your head and blood on your clothes,
the whole city is watching, now lets go
However, all was not well this year, India lost stalwarts and somehow most of them in the field of Art and Literature. In one year a generation who had inspired us were gone, Shammi Kapoor, MF Husain, Gautam Rajadhyaksha, Subhod Sarkar, Satyendra Dubey, Bhimsen Joshi, Sri Lal Shukla, Bhupen Hazarika, Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi and Jagjit Singh. Though death is a very weird feeling for me, I am not at all afraid of dying however the death of others always affects me in a profound way.
One of favourite quotes which Sartre had put it so eloquently says,
“One always dies too soon - or too late. And yet one's whole life is complete at that moment, with a line drawn neatly under it, ready for the summing up. You are - your life, and nothing else.”
Hence now we can only measure their lives with their contribution to the society and more to ourselves as individuals.
Two people who made an enormous contribution to my memories are also the ones we lost in this year. The first one was Anant Pai, or fondly Uncle Anant Pai, who had passed away in February. Anant Pai was the creator and till 1999 the Managing director of ‘Amar Chitra Katha’. In the 70s and 80s when India wasn’t liberalised and either we were bombarded with Russian books from the erstwhile USSR or hoped to get our hands on the Marvel and DC comics there was our saviour ‘Amar Chitra Katha’. The magical telling, retelling, reading and re-reading of the Indian mythology, folk tales, and biographic accounts of historical & mythical characters built my childhood memories. Like everyone of my generation we cannot take away those memories. I know most of the Indian mythology through these books can’t imagine what my life would have been without them. I think it was ‘Surya’ or Dashavatar’ which was my first ACK, today I have around 200 of them and each time I walk into a book store I keep hoping to buy the full 440+ of them. He also started ‘Tinkle’ which also became famous in the 1980s. So for all those great memories, moments and till a large extent the person I am, I owe it to Uncle Anant Pai.
This article is named ‘The year which killed a dream’. I always wanted to meet Devanand. He was my hero initially because he was cool but later because he was super-cool the way he led his life, I have always admired men, like Devanand or Khushwant Singh, who have lived there lives with honesty and dealt with their relationships with maturity. With his death that dream of meeting him has died forever, when we lose someone in a relationship we feel bad but somehow we have a feeling that we would meet them somewhere or sometime. But when someone dies that strand of hope is broken and his death at least killed that dream of mine.
Though it was quite strange that he was my hero. In early 80s when he was really past his prime people looked for Amitabh Bachchan or were hopeful of Sanjay Dutt, Anil Kapoor or Jackie Shroff. His movies were introduced to me by mother and aunts who were really fond of him. Actually everyone in my family was fond of Dev Saheb, including my father and uncles. I remember a long time ago one of my uncles came back after watching Swami Dada and was telling me its story. Though, I think my first Devanand movie was ‘Jewel Thief’ on a Sunday evening on Doordarshan and instantaneously I was hooked to the plot. Especially, during summer vacations when we all cousins got together we watched a lot of his movies on those old video cassettes. We became big fans of him. He was the coolest hero in the industry; he was that urban hero, that eternal romantic and the optimist amongst the gloom, naive or a hillbilly which Dilip Kumar or Raj Kapoor represented. But as I grew up I realised that he represented more than just that, he was a workaholic, he kept making movies even when they failed, he never looked back, never cared about failures and above all he led his life with utter honesty. Honesty doesn’t always mean that you do the right thing; it actually means that you are honest about your flaws too and that was Devanand.
A person is not only judged by himself but also by the company he keeps. He was friends with everyone including Raj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar with whom he formed the trinity of Indian Cinema. Supposedly when Dilip Kumar heard of his demise he refused to come out of his bedroom for hours. But his real close friends were, father and son duo of S.D. and R.D., Sahir Ludhianvi whom most would regard as the best poet and lyricist of the movie industry, Md. Rafi and Kishore Kumar, they all combined give some of the greatest songs in the cinema.
They gave us unmatched philosophy, heart aching sadness, the cool romance, fun & frolic, the devotion towards the almighty, the freedom of a liberated woman to the agonizing wait for death.
Of course, the list won’t be complete without mentioning the incomparable Gurudutt. The story of their friendship is very interesting, they both used to share the same laundry and one day Devanand found his shirt missing, he reached with his only other shirt, which wasn’t clean, to the studio to shoot for his first movie where he saw the choreographer wearing his shirt. When confronted the choreographer acknowledged that it wasn’t his shirt and the laundry had given him the wrong one, but he had to wear it because he had none other. They became friends and promised that Gurudutt would be his director if he made his movie and Dev would be the hero in his Gurudutt's production. Devanand gave Indians the gift of Gurudutt’s genius through Baazi and Gurudutt gave Devanand one of his biggest hits in CID.
One of the best eulogy to him was done by ‘Sontosh Desai’, in his ToI blog, called, ‘The death of time’, which ends with a line which epitomises the essence of being Devanand and the reality of Death, ‘When Dev Anand dies, you know that death is no longer playing games, it means business.’
Indian movie industry is built on songs, music and dances and that hasn’t changed over time, we romance using songs, we sing when we are sad, we tease, laugh and gloom using songs. We sing in the praise of our nation and we sing in the times of revolution. There is a song when someone gets married and there is one when someone passes away. Our movies are entrenched with them. As, Feroz Khan used to say, “The art of rendering a song on screen started with Devanand and would end with him”. Hence, here are some of my favourites which are a slice of what Devanand could do while rendering a song, this includes some of the songs from his movies which might not feature him but show the brilliance of his philosophical leanings. This is as much a tribute to Devanand as to Gurudutt, Chetan Anand, Vijay Anand, S.D. Burman, R.D. Burman, Sahir Ludhianvi, Shailendra, Md. Rafi, Kishore Kumar, Mukesh, Talat Mahmood and Hemant Kumar. None of them are with us any more.
The start of his movie carrier was dominated by his love affair with Suraiya and they sing from movie ‘Jeet’
As he lost his love, he became his own man and did movies which were way ahead of their times, here is a classic from ‘Patita’, his movies were always ahead of times.
He made a comedy thriller under his own banner Navketan called ‘Afsar’ based on Nikloi Gogol’s novel which spawned a series of crime thrillers out of Bombay. Baazi and Jaal directed by Gurudutt were big hits, Jaal showed him as an anti-hero which is as close to villain as Hindi movies could get till today.
CID, produced by Gurudutt was the biggest hit of both their carrier., but here is a song which doesn’t feature Devanand but another of their lifelong friend in Johnny Walker.
Munimji wasn’t a very big commercial hit but this song is still one the great songs sung by Kishore Kumar.
This was the start of phenomenal decade for him, which saw him reach the peak of his stardom:
1956, Paying Guest
1957, Nau Do Gyarah
1958, Kala Pani, the quintessential Devanand which paired him opposite utterly beautiful Madhubala,
or Solvan Saal opposite gorgeous Waheeda Rehman, Waheeda Rehman became his favorite actress and they worked in many more movies to come
1959, Kala Bazaar
1960, Bambai ka Babu
1961, Hum Dono, where due to S. D. Burman’s illness, his then assistant Jaidev gave immortal music to this movie, though I really like 'Allah tero naam' but here are two of my favourites
1962, Baat ek raat ki
1963 , Tere Ghar ke Samne
1964, Teen Devian
1965, Guide, Outlook magazine had carried a poll of experts in 2006 to select 20 best songs of 20th century and 2 songs from Guide were in the top 5 and 3 in top 10 and though it is very tough to choose from probably the greatest album of Indian cinema, here are 2 of them
Then later came Jewel Thief
Prem Pujari
Johnny Mera Naam
Tere Mere Sapne
And an iconic movie which gave Indians a new kind of woman, Hare Rama Hare Krishna, a movie which was a decade before its time
After this he made a lot of movies, some worked, most didn't however, my pick of the song amongst them is from Joshila,
Devanand’s life reminds me of a Harivansh Rai Bachchan’s poem and specially the final verse,
काली काले केशों में कमल सजाये
चुपके चुपके आई
मैं उजले मुंह, उजले वस्त्रों में बैठा था
पथ पर थी उजयाली छाई
तुम कौन
मौत
मैं जीने की ही जोत जुगत में लगा रहा
बोली मत घबरा स्वागत का मेरे तुने सबसे अछ्छा सामान किया
मैंने जीवन देखा
जीवन का गान किया
Kaali kaale keshon me kala kamal sajaye
chupke chupke aayee
main ujle munh, ujle vastron me baitha tha
path par thi ujyali chaayi
tum kaun
maut
main jeene ki hi jog jugat me laga raha
boli, mat ghabra, swagat ka mere tune sab se achha saaman kiya
maine jeevan dekha
jeevan ka gaan kiya
Adorning black hair with black lotus in her hair,
She came silently,
I was sitting there bright faced, wearing white clothes,
Even the way was illuminating,
Who are you?
Death, she said,
But I was so engrossed in living,
She said, Don’t worry, You have accumulated the best possessions to welcome me,
I saw life,
I lived it to the fullest
