Somehow, -i didn’t expect it-i am affected by Dev Anand’s death, affected enough to write this review. My admiration for Dev Anand and the stars I give him are more because of his personality. No doubt I love him as an actor too. Just a month before writing this review I presented a paper at a conference in California about a song from his film’Kalabazar’ -"Apni to har aah ik toofan hai.".
He was a man with dignity. A lad from Punjab who made it big in the dream world. He was noble in love and friendship, in success and loss; moreover, he was patient in adversity. Dev Anand was a man who could have bought half of Mumbai but he never ran after money. Indeed, he and Navketan Films were a support to many struggling and unknown artists. He was a man of high moral character, discipline, and great optimism. All his co-stars have respect for him, his heroines praise him and his decency. Surprisingly, for all his acquaintance with literature, his knowledge of Indian and western cinema, his love for and understanding of music, his sensibility seems to have failed him in his later movies.
In spite of his mannerisms and his imitation of Gregory Peck, he was a great star. His black and white movies will always be remembered for his image of the urban, debonair young man with a captivating smile and with a twinkle in his eyes. He was one of the great trio. A pity we didn’t see him opposite Raj Kapoor(nor with Amitabh, Shahrukh.) though he worked in one movie with Dilip Kumar. He worked with most of the great heroines of his time including Suchitra Sen. His bond with great music directors and singers produced immortal songs. Rafi, Kishore, Hemant Kumar gave some of their best songs for him. Of his colored movies, of course the best is’Guide’, which he made in English too. Unfortunately, he became afflicted by the malady of self-love and obsessed with a desire to take upon his shoulders the task of a cinematic messiah-an aged messiah too. Or, as Vaheeda Rehman said, his sense of the script went haywire. That never works. Thus, most of his recent movies did badly on the box office. Still, more than 100 movies as lead actor! And more than half a century of cinema with Suraiya(his first and real love), Nutan, Kamini Kaushal, Kalpana Kartik, Nimmi, Shaquila, Vaijantimala, Vaheeda Rehman(one of his best pairings), Meena Kumari, Sadhna, Mala Sinha, Mumtaz, Hema Malini, Tina Munim, Zeenat Aman, Asha Parekh, Parveen Babi, Rakhee, Sharmila Tagore, Padmini Kolhapure, Tabu. the Anand brothers, Guru Dutt, Johny Walker, Sahir Ludhiyanvi, Neeraj, Lata, Aasha, Usha Uthup, the Burmans, O.P. Nayyar, Shankar-Jaikishan, Jaidev, Rafi, Hemant Kumar, Kishore, Raj Khosla, Shatrughan Sinha, Kabir Bedi, Aamir Khan, Jackie Shroff, Shekhar Kapoor.No one can say that he had less than 100% passion for movies. As an actor, producer and director he’s proved it.
He did have in him the desire to make the world a better place. Thus, his short foray into politics too.
Dev Anand always seemed to be around. Doing something or the other, even what seemed to people like a crazy obsession. If someone asked "Where is Dev Anand?", the answer would be "Oh, he must be somewhere, making a movie." I feel that with his passing away a bridge between the old world and the new world has broken down. He was the young man of his times who showed how life should be lived and encountered even in the old age. He made mistakes but knew how to live with them. Robert Browning’s lines "But what if I fail in my purpose here?/It is but to keep the nerves at strain/To dry one’s eyes and laugh at a fall/ And baffled, get up and begin again" were true of him. I wish his funeral took place in India.