The inimitable Bambai ka Babu: Remembering Dev Anand in his birth centenary year

Brijeshwar Singh

Was Dev Anand just another Bombay superstar with a king-size ego? Superstar he certainly was, probably the first, and one who never lost his passion for cinema till his last breath. But he was also the most caring, down-to-earth and courteous filmstar the industry has ever seen. It was his lack of ego that set him apart from his many high-strung colleagues. And surprisingly, his lack of ego is the personal quality he doesn’t bring out in his quite racy autobiography ‘Romancing with Life’. In literature, as in films, he knew how to underplay.

Universally called Dev Saab, in Bombay he was known to drive himself, not drink, stick almost entirely to vegetarian food, not attend parties generally and keep up a daily exercise routine, long before actors had learnt to hit the gym. He kept his family securely hidden from the media. A stickler for punctuality, he could work 16 hours straight starting at 4 am. But he was also farsighted and knew how to grab a chance.

Dev Anand was born in Shakargarh tehsil of Gurdaspur district (now in Pakistan). His father Pishori Lal Anand was a lawyer, who had a flourishing practice till the early 1940s. He sent his eldest son Chetan to England for higher studies, hoping he would qualify for the ICS. Unfortunately, the family’s Congress background prevented Chetan from qualifying. Dev, the third son, had been sent to a school in Dalhousie and he had hoped to study in England, too. But, by then, his father’s practice had dwindled and Dev was told he must seek work. With Rs 30 in his pocket, Dev came to Bombay hoping for a naval commission. But again, a police report on the family’s political affiliation prevented him from getting the job/commission. He then joined the military censor’s office.

Strong self-confidence

Dev had done some theatre work for the Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA) courtesy Chetan and that had been noticed. When he heard that Prabhat Films was looking for a new young lead, Dev, dressed in his best, went to the Prabhat office. He waited outside till the manager arrived, and then gave him a big smile. The manager asked who the young man was, called him in, and offered him a ticket to Pune for a screen test. Dev Saab never looked back. He often told the story to emphasise how success in films came only to those who had strong self-confidence.

Quite early in his career, Dev Saab had realised that male leads lasted only 15 or 20 years, and were then discarded. But a producer could still pick a story which required an older actor in the lead. Accordingly, Dev Saab set up Navketan films in 1949 to give a platform to his director-brother, and also to train himself for what he saw as an inevitable transition to film production.

Navketan provided a break to three famous directors other than Chetan — Guru Dutt, Raj Khosla and Vijay Anand, all leading lights of Bombay. It also gave Dev Saab the opportunity to do negative roles. He was, by turn, a smuggler, a gambler, and a black marketeer, as many Navketan films dealt with the redemption of the hero rather than his glorification. None of Dev Saab’s contemporaries were prepared to essay these sort of complex characters.

He also made a name as a decent urban romantic lover, and established an archetype which still guides the film industry today. Where he scored over his contemporaries was his amazing ‘still’ quality. Audiences were prepared to watch him being motionless on screen. It was a rare quality found in only a few stars like Madhubala, Meena Kumari and the legendary Suchitra Sen.

Dev Saab also used some of his limitations to his advantage. He felt his neck was too thin, and began camouflaging it with a high collar and a variety of scarves. He had a slight stoop which accentuated with age but audiences loved it, and imitated his slightly crooked walk. And when confronted with long dialogues in his early films, the star was uncertain where to pause. He would then simply speak fast in a single breath. This again became a much-imitated style.

When rumours of his romance with Suraiya started, it was commonplace for Suraiya’s fans to claim they kept a picture of Dev Anand in their shoes, so they could trample on him all the time! His male fans grew only with his off-beat crime films. His female fans were innumerable.

Two generations of both middle-aged and young women raved about the elusive ‘Dev Anand waali baat’ that other actors lacked. In retrospect, this was probably his ability to listen attentively to every word uttered by his female lead, with his head tilted and his eyes sparkling. This magic worked. All his female heroines doted on him. Zaheeda even knitted him a sweater which he wore in ‘Jewel Thief’ (1967) in the song ‘Ye Dil Na Hota Bechara’. Asha Parekh, usually typecast as a dancing doll, showed signs of dramatic talent opposite him in ‘Jab Pyar Kisese Hota Hai’ (1961). And ‘Pyar Mohabbat’ (1966) though a box-office flop proved that Saira Banu had hidden comic talent.

His major film, ‘Guide’ (1965), was a slow starter, but became a surprise hit, and finally established itself as a classic. The English version, however, flopped. ‘Guide’ was originally planned as a Hollywood production to be helmed by Darryl F Zanuck with wife Jennifer Jones in a leading role. The Indo-Pak war of 1965 finished off that venture.

Dev Saab was the most Hollywood-oriented star of his times and was friends with many leading actors from Gregory Peck to Shirley MacLaine. In the ’70s, after the stunning success of ‘Johny Mera Naam’ (1970) and ‘Hare Rama Hare Krishna’ (1971), he decided to do an international-standard magnum opus — ‘Ishk Ishk Ishk’ (1974). Journalists from abroad were taken in helicopters to see the shooting at 12,000 feet near the Everest base camp.

The film turned out to be a Himalayan-sized disaster at the box-office. The story was average, and the loose script spoke of Dev Saab’s weakening writing skills. The star-producer had sold his assets to finance this film and suffered a huge setback. His nephew Shekhar Kapoor, who had debuted in this film, was with him when the distributors started calling with the bad news. Kapoor recalls that Dev Saab’s face clouded as the bad news kept pouring in. However, after 10 minutes, he was emotionally composed, and had begun working on his next film! It was this amazing mixture of courage and emotional resilience that made him unstoppable.

Standing up to authorities

His moment of true courage came a little later in 1976-1977. With the press muzzled during Emergency due to censorship, the official media went flat out to promote the young dynast Sanjay Gandhi. Many bigwigs had been ordered to participate in a star-studded musical evening in Delhi. Most obliged. Dev Saab and his playback voice Kishore Kumar did not go. They were blacklisted by Doordarshan and AIR. Dev Saab was outraged. He flew to Delhi, and gently reminded VC Shukla, the then I&B Minister, that Emergency notwithstanding, India was still a democracy. The ban was lifted!

Dev Saab had begun as a Left-winger in the ’40s, but slowly became disenchanted with the controls and black markets of Nehru’s socialist era. In 1977, he openly rebelled against Indira Gandhi, and even addressed election meetings challenging the government to arrest him. In an effort to ‘restore morality to politics’, Dev Saab floated the National Party. He later disbanded it, disillusioned yet again.

He was awarded the Padma Bhushan and Dadasaheb Phalke Award only during the Vajpayee years. It mattered little to him though. He was more concerned about his standing in the industry. His autobiography, incidentally, was released by then Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh in 2007.

By the ’70s, the film industry was treating him as a ‘living treasure’. He continued to give breaks to innumerable strugglers like Zarina Wahab, Shatrughan Sinha, Jackie Shroff and many more who became well-known names later. Navketan also introduced countless new sound recordists, assistant cameramen, lighting supervisors, musicians, lyric and dialogue writers. Dev Saab continued to pick challenging subjects for his films. Illegal immigration to the UK was the subject of ‘Des Pardes’ (1978), the last major Navketan hit that made Tina Munim an established name.

Dev Saab continued to act in other productions besides Navketan’s. He was 50 when a producer hired him to replace an erratic Rajesh Khanna, 20 years his junior. And he was 67 in 1989, at the time of ‘Lashkar’, his last major hit for an outside production house.

His later films were all made with his own money. But the titles tell their own story: ‘Censor’ (2001), ‘Mr. Prime Minister’ (2005), ‘Chargesheet’ (2011). Till the end, he remained a lawyer’s son, upholding the rule of law against the arbitrariness of governments. He was truly an unsinkable force!

Postscript

• Chetan Anand, eldest of the Anand brothers and a successful film-TV director, passed away in 1997. His never-released first film ‘Neecha Nagar’ (1946) remains the only Indian film to win the first prize at the Cannes film festival.
• Vijay (Goldy) Anand died in 2007. His ‘Guide’ (1965) and ‘Johny Mera Naam’ (1970) are still studied by aspiring commercial filmmakers. His consummate skill of picturising songs remains unsurpassed.
• Dev Anand died in London in December 2011. ‘Chargesheet’ had been released a few weeks earlier but the star producer-director had already announced his next film, ‘Beauty Queen’. His 92-year-old wife Mona (Kalpana Kartik) lives in Mumbai. His daughter Devina resides in Mussoorie, but often comes to Mumbai to take care of her mother. Son Suneil runs Navketan but film production seems to have stopped. The carefree brothers are perhaps still singing together somewhere: ‘Jeevan Ke Safar Mein Rahi…’

— The writer is former Director-General, All India Radio