Dev Anand

Living legend actor Dharam Dev Anand popularly known as Dev Anand will mark his 87th birthday on Sunday.

Dev Ānand born on 26 September 1923 is an Indian Bollywood actor, director and film producer. Dev is the second of three brothers who were active in Bollywood. His elder brother Chetan Anand was a film director, as was his younger brother, Vijay Anand. Their sister, Sheel Kanta Kapur, is the mother of renowned Hindi and English film director Shekhar Kapur.

He is till date considered as the evergreen actor, the famous Jewel Thief, is known to be the heartthrob of millions. With an acting career spanning over 60 years in the Bollywood industry, Dev Anand even today is known for his passion and zeal towards his work. It is this ardor of his that drives him to ‘Jiyo Dil Se’. This eminent personality has ruled the silver screen for almost a decade and has excelled in all fields of work be it acting, directing or film producing.

Dev was born Dharam Dev Anand in Gurdaspur district in undivided Punjab to well-to-do advocate Kishorimal Anand. He graduated in English literature from the Government College, Lahore (now in Pakistan). His love for acting made him leave his hometown for the centre of the Hindi film industry, Mumbai. Dev began his career in the military censor office at Churchgate, Mumbai, for a salary of Rs.160.

He was soon offered a break as an actor by Prabhat Talkies to star in their film Hum Ek Hain(1946). While shooting for the film in Pune, Dev struck a friendship with another fellow legendary actor Guru Dutt.

Dev was offered his first big break by Ashok Kumar. He spotted Dev hanging around in the studios and picked him as the hero for the Bombay Talkies production, Ziddi, costarring Kamini Kaushal (1948) which became a success. In 1949, Dev turned producer and launched his own company Navketan, which continues to produces movies.

Dev chose to rely on Guru Dutt as director for the crime thriller, Baazi (1951). The collaboration was a success at the box office. He also played a few characters with a negative shade, like in Jaal(1952). His films Rahee and Aandhiyan, were screened there along with Raj Kapoor’s Awaara. In the same year, Taxi Driver was declared a hit. Dev’s heroine was Kalpana Kartik aka Mona Singha again, and the two decided to marry in a quiet ceremony. The couple had a son, Suneil Anand in 1956.

A rapid-fire style of dialogue delivery and a penchant for nodding while speaking became Dev’s style in films like Munimji, C.I.D. and Paying Guest. His style was lapped up by the audience and was widely imitated. He starred in a string of box office successes for the remainder of the 1950s. In 1955 he also co-starred with Dilip Kumar in Insaniyat. With his acting in Kala Pani (1958), as the son who is willing to go to any lengths to clear his framed father’s name, he won the Best Actor Award for the film.

He was romantically involved with singer-actress Suraiya and the two of them paired in six films together. She fell in love with him during the shooting of a song sequence in the film-a boat capsized and Dev Anand saved Suraiya from drowning. Her grandmother opposed the relationship as they were Muslims and so, Suraiya remained unmarried all her life.

His first film in colour, Guide with Waheeda Rehman was based on the novel of the same name by R. K. Narayan. Dev Anand himself was the impetus for making the film version of the book. He met and persuaded Narayan to give his assent to the project. Dev Anand tapped his friends in Hollywood to launch an Indo-US co-production that was shot in Hindi and English simultaneously and was released in 1965. Guide, directed by younger brother Vijay Anand, was an acclaimed movie. Dev played Raju, a voluble guide, who supports Rosy (Waheeda) in her bid for freedom. He is not above thoughtlessly exploiting her for personal gains. Combining style with substance, he gave an affecting performance as a man grappling with his emotions in his passage through love, shame and salvation.

He reunited with Vijay Anand for the Jewel Thief, featuring a bevy of beauties led by Vyjayanthimala and including Tanuja, Anju Mahendru, Faryal and Helen. Their next collaboration, Johnny Mera Naam (1970) was a big hit.

His maiden attempt at direction, the espionage drama Prem Pujari, flopped, but he tasted success with his 1971 directorial effort, Hare Rama Hare Krishna which talked about the prevalent hippie culture. His find Zeenat Aman, who played the mini-skirt sporting, pot-smoking Janice, became an overnight sensation. Dev also became known as a filmmaker of trenchantly topical themes. This same year, he starred with Mumtaz in Tere Mere Sapne, an adaptation of A. J. Cronin’s novel, The Citadel. The film was directed by Dev’s brother, Vijay.

The presence of his ‘discoveries’-the Zeenat and later, the Tina Munim (heroine of Dev’s last recognised hit Des Pardes in 1978)-fuelled Dev’s image as the evergreen star even when he was well into his fifties.

Dev Anand has also been politically active. He led a group of film personalities who stood up against the Internal Emergency imposed by the then Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi. He actively campaigned against her with his supporters in Indian parliamentary elections in 1977. He also formed a party called the National Party of India, which he later disbanded.

Since his 1978 hit Des Pardes, his subsequent films in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s failed to do well at the box office. His most recent film appearance was in Mr Prime Minister in 2005.

Dev Anand’s films are well known for their hit songs. His association with music composers Shankar-Jaikishen, O. P. Nayyar, Kalyanji-Anandji, Sachin Dev Burman and his son Rahul Dev Burman, lyricists Hasrat Jaipuri, Majrooh Sultanpuri, Neeraj, Shailendra, Anand Bakshi, and playback singers Mohammad Rafi, Mahendra Kapoor, Mukesh and Kishore Kumar produced some very popular songs.

In September 2007, Dev’s own autobiography “Romancing with Life” was released at a birthday party with the Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh.

Dev Anand with Suraiya at a private party after they broke up

Off and on, I’ve fallen in and out of love. After all, I’m a human being, not a god or a sanyasi. But when you’re seriously in love,you propose to the girl and tell her, `I can’t live without you.’ That happened only once in my life — with Suraiya.

It was my first and only serious love affair. I was very young and callow at the time. As a teenager, I had been infatuated by a girl at the Government College, Lahore. She was our history professor’s daughter. But it was only from a distance, I barely spoke to her, and our so-called romance went nowhere. I suppose it happens to everybody at that age.

But Suraiya was another story. She was one of my early co-stars. I was thoroughly smitten by her. So much so that I wanted desperately to marry her. I even bought her a ring. And she was responding in equal measure.

There wouldn’t have been a love affair otherwise. I’m too much of an egoist to chase an unresponsive woman and nurse an unrequited love. The girl doesn’t like me, I don’t like her, forget it. That’s me.

Anyway, Suraiya and I decided to get married. But her conservative family and her self-seeking friends came in the way. They brought up this whole Hindu-Muslim communal bogey, and made a big deal of it.

There was this matriarchal grandmother of hers who was totally dead- set against our marriage, and so was an entire gang of her suitors and ex-suitors. Only her mother sympathised with us, but she couldn’t sway the others who managed to dissuade Suraiya.

Suraiya never married, but several men were keen to tie the knot with her. After all, she was a big star in the 1940s. And I was a nobody — just a budding newcomer — when we first met. Looking back, I feel it was her star-image that made her all the more desirable.

Her popularity as a singing star in those days was simply amazing — her songs were playing on the air all the time, and frenzied crowds mobbed her car wherever she went, clamouring for her attention. `Suraiya! Suraiya! Suraiya!’ It was as if the whole world was in love with her. So her physical beauty had this added aura of
public adulation.

When a woman as pretty and famous as that feeds your ego saying `I love you, too’ there was no escape for me — I got emotionally cornered.

After we broke up, there were several stories doing the rounds. One said I send her a rose on her birthday every year. I never did that. Once I was through with Suraiya, I immersed myself completely in my production company Navketan and began filming Baazi.

That’s when I also met a newcomer called Mona Singh whose screen name was Kalpana Kartik and who later became my wife. But if you ask me if I married on the rebound, I won’t deny it.

Even though I was busy working long hours after Suraiya and I went our separate ways, I realized I was still carrying the psychological baggage of that relationship. The more it was clear that I’d lost her, the more I wanted to make her mine. And for an egoist like me, those were hellish days.

I remember it got to a point where I once went across to my elder brother Chetan Anand (he was my only confidant then), and wept on his shoulder like a child.

You find yourself in a vacuum, you begin to wonder `mujhe ladki kyon nahi mil rahi, mujh mein kya problem hai?’ and in walked this young educated girl with a college degree, who spoke fantastic English, and was part of the new crowd.

We had a secret marriage on the sets during a lunch break because I hate elaborate wedding tamashas. At the time, I felt like this is better than what I had left behind. But somewhere deep down, I always knew Suraiya was the love and the passion of my life and I will always cherish her memory – Shekhar Hattangadi

C.I.D (1956)

This is one of Hindi cinema’s few experiments with film noir. It engages with the genre fully, down to its rainy night street scenes and relentless emphasis on icons of modernity, such as telephones, cars, guns, newspapers and houses with sliding panels, trapdoors, etc. Inder Raj Anand took elements of film noir and mixed them with many other styles to form a total hybrid in the distinctive style of Hindi movies. The film’s plot is not too exciting but the visuals and music are impressive.

After a network of phone calls, the editor of the Times of India is murdered and Inspector Shekhar (Dev Anand) of the CID brought in to investigate. He hijacks a car driven by a young woman, Rekha (Shakila) to chase the murderer but she throws away the car key. Aided by Master (Johnny Walker), Shekhar captures the murderer but is then taken to see a mysterious woman, Kamini (Waheeda Rehman), who warns him not to pursue his investigation further. Meanwhile, he finds out that Rekha is in fact his superintendent’s daughter, and romance blossoms. Shekhar is framed for the killing of the murderer in jail but escapes, and is helped by Kamini to bring the story to a conclusion.

This film clearly reveals how Dev Anand early in his career established his style as ‘Debonaire Dev’, a persona which was later to become very mannered. This was Waheeda’s debut in Hindi films and she is presented as an image of total female beauty. She would have a long career as a major star, first as a romantic heroine over two decades, then playing older characters. There is also a comic subplot focused on a lower-class couple, with the popular comedian Johnny Walker (who took his name from the whisky) as a tailor and petty crook.

The film’s songs form a superb collection of music, and the collaboration between music director O. P. Nayyar and lyricist Majrooh Sultanpuri is ideally suited to the modern, urban nature of the movie. As well as having audio value outside the film as great songs, they are also employed skillfully to advance the action as well as being used as themes. The song picturisation is stunning too, whether they are shot as romance in the countryside, as village girls (in film/ costumes) fetch water from the river (‘Nadi kinare gaoun re’), or in the romantic duet ‘Aankhon hi aankhon mein’, or are shot in Bombay’s public spaces. The city is also shown as boasting locations for romance, including the sea fronts, which have long been places where lovers meet. The question of romance is first raised with one of the most popular songs, ‘Leke pehla pehla pyaar’, during which Dev Anand walks along the sea front behind Shakila, accompanied by two professional singers. (This would become Dev Anand’s trademark, walking rather than dancing through songs.) One of the most famous songs from the film is about the city of Bombay itself — ‘E dil hai mushkil’.

These song picturisations reveal that Raj Khosla was very much a disciple of Guru Dutt and the style he took from the Anand brothers’ Navketan banner. He had a rather uneven career in terms of success and genre, as his range included thrillers and cop films but also some huge hits, including Mera gaon mera desh and the ‘woman’s weepie’ Main tulsi tere aangan ki.

Cast and Production Credits

Year – 1956, Genre – Crime, Country – India, Language – Hindi, Producer – Guru Dutt Films, Director – Raj Khosla, Music Director – O.P Nayyar, Cast - Shakila, Waheeda Rehman, Kumkum, Sheela Vaz, Dev Anand, Bir Sakuja, Johnny Walker, K. N. Singh