Dev Anand: The evergreen hero

The then Indian envoy in Aden visited my newspaper office and invited me to join a dinner he was hosting for famous Bollywood star Dev Anand. I readily accepted his invitation to be at his house overlooking the sea.
I was excited to meet Dev Anand as I had known him since my college days at Xavier’s — the premier college in Mumbai and one of the finest in India. I had also seen many of his films. As a matter of fact I had also watched films of two other Bollywood icons, namely Raj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar. These three stalwarts held sway and dominated the Hindi film scene for many years. I have already written about Dilip Kumar and planning to write about Raj Kapoor.
The Indian envoy lived close to my house in Crater, the commercial hub of Aden, and the southern part of Arabia in Yemen. So it was just a hop from my house to his and since his wife would be the hostess I took my wife along and the newspaper camera — the old and ever reliable in those days the Rollieflex.
We talked about life in Mumbai — the city was then called Bombay — and about his films of which Taxi Driver stuck in my memory because it showed a good deal of the city from Malabar Hill to Colaba Causeway. I told him too that in my college days he was the darling of the girls much more than Dilip and Raj Kapoor who were admired for their acting and showmanship respectively. He smiled and willingly posed for my cameraman after adjusting his hair and making sure that his trademark tuft was in place as the photo below shows. My own photo with him had disappeared in the chaos of the press of that era where photos were stored in envelopes in very untidy places.
The photo shown on this page was preserved and survived because it was kept at home at the time.
Dev was born in l923 in the part of Punjab that is in present day Pakistan and joined Government College in Lahore. He obtained a bachelor’s degree in English literature. He later decided to go to Mumbai in the early l940s to look for jobs. He got his first job in an accountancy firm for a meager salary of eighty rupees, which he liked to scoff later in his life when he was earning millions in the film industry.
While some of his films flopped, a few were box office hits especially those he starred with his first serious love — actress Suraiya with whom he shared a few films. He wanted to marry her but could not because Suraiya’s Muslim family objected to her marriage to a non-Muslim, although one of his earliest films was about Hindu-Muslim unity in India during the British rule which had played an invidious role in pitting different communities in India against each other. His films with Suraiya were fairly successful as he was gradually attaining a reputation as a romantic hero in films such as Sanam, Shair, Afsar and Nili.
Suraiya is said to have fallen in love with him during the shooting of the romantic song Kinare when their boat capsized and Dev saved Suraiya from drowning.
Much later Sunil Dutt and Nargis fell in love when the actor saved her from a big fire during the shooting of the great Mother India film. Nargis had by then left her former lover Raj Kapoor because he would not marry her because he was already married to longtime wife and mother of his children.
While Nargis married Sunil Dutt and later died of cancer leaving him with their two daughters and son Sanjay who is now about to go to jail because of his foolhardiness during the Mumbai riots following the demolition of Babri Masjid in 1992.
Meanhile, Suraiya remained unmarried until the end.
In l949, Dev launched his own film company Navketan, which made many films of which a few were well accepted by the public. The film Taxi Driver, which is mentioned above was a great success although I did not rate too highly. His other films like Guide, Jewell Thief and Hare Ram were much better. But when he made Return of Jewell Thief he bit the dust since he was already old and wrinkled and the film-going public had other ideas.
Still the man persisted and was until his death the longest serving actor and filmmaker who made the best use of his famous hair and superb looks.
His long association with Waheeda Rahman stood him in good stead since some of their films fared very well in the 1950s. His popular film Kala Pani won him his first Filmfare award as best actor. And his successful streak as romantic hero with Waheeda, Nutan and Meena Kumari confirmed his position as romantic hero, which he immortalized in his autobiography Romancing with Life.
I read his book with special interest because I had followed up his career with affection since my college days when he was at the top of his career and everyone of my age both admired and envied him.
Although already in his 50s Dev continued to act in romantic roles supported by his good looks, huge amount of air and jovial nature. First the very attractive Zeenat Aman then Tina Munim and Parveen Babi contributed to his lasting popularity despite his advancing age. Observers always believed that his acting chemistry with Rakhi, Hema Malini and others kind of appealed to the cinema-going public and boosted his career. He was called as the evergreen hero by the press. The media also called Dilip Kumar the thespian, meaning the good tragic actor, and Raj Kapoor the showman who made flamboyance his trademark, although he was quite capable of making good films based on excellent acting in films particularly those with Nargis.
But in his older years Dev began to bore his audiences because he made poor films just for the sake of acting despite his advancing age whereas his peers like Dilip and Raj had called it a day. Raj died quite early of a heart condition and his nonstop smoking but Dilip survived and kept his acting to the minimum. When I met him in Jeddah during his Umrah visit he had practically quit cinema.
Dev must be credited with love of life and zest for acting and meeting the press and the public as he did more than dozens of times during his eventful career and romancing with life until his end at the age of 88 years.

luqman@srpc.com