Thursday, December 31, 2009

From Devdas to Dev D

While browsing through various sites/blogs randomly, I came across this piece of writing on the blog of Mindscape, analyzing and comparing two era through one classic DEVDAS.

Initially I thought of including whole article in my blog but then included summery part only that is crux of the article. Also including link of original article at the end whosoever is interested in reading more :-)

From Devdas to Dev D

Sarat Chandra’s classic novel Devdas, written in 1917, has been done many times in Indian cinema, about 11 times in all but none with such a different perspective as by Anurag Kashyap, maker of Dev D.

The vision of telling this classic love story blended with contemporary times and similarities with the MMS scandal and BMW case strikes familiarity and is more in line with the current social and cultural values.

Devdas is shown to be a soft and gentle person but exhibits irrational behaviour in fits of rage. I find that this trait of Devdas will resonate with the sentiments of several youngsters whose anger has become displaced.

We resent the choices and decisions that are made for us and like Devdas, we also rebel silently, from within. But not many of us have the courage to question openly and gain the freedom to make our own choices and decisions. Like Devdas, we too build up anger within ourselves and prefer to go on a self destruction spree than direct it in some constructive way. We crib and we complain but do nothing. We talk about freedom and independence in our society, but where will this freedom and independence come from when we are still chained in our minds by values we dissociate from but still cannot break away from?

Today’s youth are angst-ridden youngsters hungry for revolution. But feel incapable of carrying out the revolution themselves because they are used to being in their ‘comfort zone’. (and who wants to walk out of comfort?!?!) Instead, they focus hard on enjoying themselves (just like Devdas who wanted to drown his miseries in alcohol). But how successful are we in trying to run away from our real problems? When the morning comes and hangover dies down, the problems still remain.

Devdas was a victim – a victim of his own anger, a victim who kept punishing himself and a victim of his own helplessness to bring about a positive turn to his life.

We could continue to be Devdas‘es’ as in the previous adaptations and wallow in self-pity or we could be like Dev in the modern version, find a way out of our sorrows and grab the opportunity that life presents us.

In this version the opportunity at a second life was presented not only to Dev but also Chanda and they both made good of it as they both lived happily ever after.

And who knows, with how the times are changing we might just see our ‘Dev’ finding love in the arms of ‘Chunni’ in the next version of this celebrated love story of DEVDAS.

Link to original publication site: http://blogindiamindscape.wordpress.com/2009/05/25/from-devdas-to-dev-d/