A man who died 88 years young

A couple of months before, he celebrated his 88^th birthday. Now it is obvious he is not going to add on to that anymore.   One of the passionate stars of Indian Film industry, Mr.Dev Anand, as we all know him, is now no more. The fact that he established his own production called “Nav Ketan” more than five decades ago when he was just in the middle of his twenties showed his love for the tinsel world.

As an actor he had starred in over 100 films and also did taste a few successes as a director.  When one looks into the overall career of the actor, he had more failures to start with before hogging the limelight. Infact, he always had to be under the shadows of actress “Soraiya” with whom he had paired in the beginning of his film career as the latter was an established actor already.

To add to his ordinary start in films as an actor, always playing a second fiddle to his heroine “Soraiya”, his real life also took a beating as far as his romance was concerned since he had to drop the plan of marrying his on screen heroine, no one else but “Soraiya”again. Anyway, this had not dissuaded his persuasion on establishing a name for himself in film industry.

Like a song in one of his films, “Hum Dono”, where Rafi voiced him with the wonderful lyrics which read “Mein Zindagi ka Saath nibatha Chala gaya” his life went on. His awesome rapid fire dialogue deliveries slowly started to impress the film audience and in the process he gradually entered the stardom which he was hoping for at the start of his career. His unique walking style and his looks added aroma to his acting abilities and soon he came into reckoning with his compatriots on those days, viz., Raj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar.

When he brought R.K.Narayan’s guide on to screen, it doubled the popularity of Dev and even now some people remembers Dev especially for his performance in that film. The songs were extremely melodious and many people even now whisper the song “Gaata Rahe mera dil” which was one of  the highlights of that film. Another notable film of his was “Jewel Thief” which was a three hour thriller movie which would bind the audience from the start till the end.

Most of the songs in his films were either sung by Mohd.Rafi or Kishore Kumar and all of them had been extremely lovable, to say the least. Infact, Kishore Kumar first gave play back to Dev Anand only and till then he used to sing only for himself. He had been a no nonsense actor throughout his career and so he had some good friendships with fellow film artists, notable among them were late Kishore Kumar and more importantly late Guru Dutt.

He considered himself young and had paired with co-stars who were not even half his age including Tina Munim. He brought in beautiful Zeenat Aman in the screen as well.  He had been always workaholic and had directed many films recently which included his latest release called “Charge Sheet”.  Even at the age of 88,  when directing a film was no joke,  Dev, due to his passion in what he was doing,  always had been in the film industry as a director, producer and also as an actor.

Now that Dev Anand is no more, it is highly improbable to find a person of his charisma and evergreen quality. I don’t think everyone will regard him as one of the best actors in bollywood but for me all I can say is  “I love his acting”.Good bye Dev Anand.