Curtain Call: Dev Anand

Earlier this year, 88-year-old Dev Anand, dubbed Bollywood’s Peter Pan, presented Chargesheet. According to IMDb, it was Anand’s 19th credit as director, 31st as producer, 114th as actor and 13th as writer. The distribution rights for Chargesheet were picked up by by Warner Bros. in India. The film starred one of India’s most respected actors, Naseeruddin Shah, Anand himself, Jackie Shroff and politician Amar Singh. Yes, that one. Singh played the role of the nation’s home minister.

If you think of Dev Anand as a man who was a cinematic force from the 1950s until the early 1970s, the hero who brought Hollywood cool to Bollywood, the heartthrob who made at least three generations of men copy his hairstyle, Chargesheet could seem worth a watch. Try actually watching the film. In one scene, a character asks, “Where did the interrogation take place?” The reply: “In the interrogation room.” Anand played an ex-cop named Gambhir Singh, who has many jackets and scarves, carries a hip flask and drinks brandy. All this makes other characters in the film point out admiringly that Gambhir Singh is “a very stylish man”. Anyone who has actually watched Chargesheet will have their own moment of heartbreak and epiphany, that second when they realise with a sinking feeling that the film had descended far below even the so-bad-it’s-good level. I have to admit, I haven’t watched all of it. I thought it would be something like watching a Carry On film, starring Anand who was once known as the Indian Gregory Peck. Ultimately, I had to give up because I wanted the name Dev Anand to bring to mind an image in black and white, of a man with a cute face, a gravity-defying poof of hair, mischievous eyes and charming swagger. Never mind the reality that Dev Anand wore a wig, drew his eyebrows and liked playing mentor to starry-eyed girls who were desperate for a break in Bollywood.

In one scene of Chargesheet, Anand tells the heroine that she should return to being a stay-at-home mum because the film industry is no place for “decent” women. It’s ironic that Anand would write this line, given one of his most memorable films is Guide. In it, Anand’s character, Raju, urges the heroine Rosie (Waheeda Rehman) to stand up for herself and leave her husband, who rubbishes Rosie’s love of dancing. Raju also supports Rosie when she decides to pursue a career in dance, independent of her husband. (Admittedly, that’s where the feminist appeal of Guide ends. Rosie’s characterisation suffers much patriarchal mangling in the rest of the film.) It seems to be quite a turnaround as attitudes go until you consider how Anand’s career devolved over the decades.

In his heyday, Anand was known as the actor who would take on romances and “bolder” stories with equal flair. Then he became the man who casts nubile nymphs opposite him in films. By the time the noughties set in, Anand had become a symbol of perseverance in the tradition of Hugh Hefner. Over the course of 114 films, Anand had worked with at least three generations of actresses, ranging from Nutan to Waheeda Rehman to Zeenat Aman to Mink. Whether or not you think Bollywood is a place for decent women, by the 1980s, Anand’s films were undoubtedly drained of decency so far as their heroines were concerned. In all fairness, the actors suffered mightily as well. After all, when the paeans are sung to Aamir Khan, his performance as Sunny in Awwal Number isn’t one that figures too often.

It is, perhaps, easier if you fail in Bollywood and are forgotten. There’s nothing to hold on to, in that event. Anand, on the other hand, hungered indecently for the success and adulation he had once enjoyed, and it reduced him to becoming a caricature of himself. And yet, despite all the cinematic disasters associated with Anand in the recent years, he remains for many of us—particularly those who have actually seen rather than YouTubed Anand’s classics—a heartwarming black and white image, full of charm, romance and delightful music. Perhaps he was evergreen after all. Cheers.

Deepanjana Pal is a journalist and the author of The Painter: A Life of Ravi Varma. She is currently a consulting copy editor at Elle magazine.