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Viewable, but this one’s not for the family

MODERN AVATAR: A still from the film DEV D

Film: DEV D

Cast: Abhay Deol, Mahi Gill

Direction: Anurag Kashyap

As you watch the first few scenes of this film (especially if you happen to swear by the classic “Devdas” of Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay made into the much talked about film by Bimal Roy), you only thank your stars that this “Dev D” is not a copy of the classic but only borrows the idea of obsessive love and loyalty and then moves away completely from it.

Here, our modern Dev (Abhay Deol), a spoilt son of a successful businessman in Punjab, dares to call his parents by name and is packed off to London to learn etiquette and academics. It’s not love for his childhood sweetheart Paro (Mahi Gill) but her corporeal charm that drags him back home as they grow up.

Dev connects with her through Internet chat. Even the modern Paro lives by her impulses. She is carefree, independent, decisive, and has few moral sensibilities. So what? She is the picture of today’s youth; or so director Anurag Kashyap would have us believe. And she marries an older man with two kids because Dev insults her for having no morals, looks and status! She lives happily and with dignity.

This Dev’s Chandramukhi is not a courtesan. She has turned a sex worker because her parents have abandoned her on seeing her in an objectionable MMS in her homeland – the U.K. Yes, she is a foreigner, Leni (Kalki Koelchin), who comes to Delhi’s dark by-lanes in Paharganj.

Through her Indian father she inherits a love for Indian films, especially Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s “Devdas”. Inspired by Chandramukhi, she decides to live like her. Anurag Kashap has tested Indian audiences’ sensibilities, or shall we say newer sensibilities, with coarse and crude dialogue through which he also makes up for scenes he knew the Censors would never pass even with an ‘A’ certificate. Those who have not grown up on Woody Allen’s films would find a disconnect here.

It very intelligently capitalises on the ‘Devdas’ tag for nostalgic value. Separated from it, the film would have lost much of its charm.

It’s not a family film, mind you. If you are expecting any innocence or chastity, better stay home.

Rana Siddiqui Zaman

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