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 Original Story
The story is about Devdas, born into a rich Bengali family in 1900s, who falls in love with a girl called Paro from his village. Under family pressure Devdas is unable to profess his love for Paro and she ends up marrying someone else. Devdas on the other hand ends up at the doorstep of a courtesan, Chandramukhi but vows to return to Paro before he would die.
While in the original adaptations, the social backdrop of the movie remains the same along with the storyline and characterization, Anurag Kashyap refuses to succumb to the conventional niceties. While at times, it remains true to the original novel, it becomes daring and often bizarre at others.
The difference lies in its modern day take on the Indian youth. The interpretation, which is slick, pushes the boundaries of Indian cinema.
Family Ties
All of the previous interpretations take us back to the early 20th century India where a family withered under the patriarch. From an early age, children were reminded of their roles and places in society. The father, head of the family took all the decisions and everyone else could do nothing but obey. Disobeying the father was seen as a gross act of disrespect.
Lines were drawn in society over several differences such as religion and caste. However, a far more powerful division was the traditional Hindu bifurcations vide social standing emerging from occupations and financial status.
This social divide was what kept Dev and Paro apart in the original adaptations of the novel. Dev and Paro, childhood sweethearts, longed to be together but when Dev’s father disapproved of their relation on the grounds of a mismatch in their financial stature, Dev meekly surrendered to his wishes.
His failure to stand up to his father came from the uneasy relationship he shared with him since childhood. It was taboo then in the minds of the people to confront difficult situations. He chose to avoid rather than confront, and quietly slipped away to the city at night.
We see this in today’s society still, as to how most of us are unable to resolve our childhood emotional baggage and continue to carry it with us as we grow up, eventually passing it on to our children and never being able to strike a comfortable relationship with them. In the latest adaptation, the relationship between the father and son coherent with the current times was shown as awkward still. The differences between rich and poor were shown to weaken, as Dev’s father expressed his agreement to his son getting married to Paro, his manager’s daughter.
Today’s Dev is faced with a dilemma yet again. This time it is his failure to come to terms with a sexually aggressive Paro. The deep rooted insecurity of men with bold, assertive women is explored. No matter how much society develops and claims are made that men are free to be sensitive metrosexuals and übersexual now, the truth remains that bold independent women make men uncomfortable.
What does Dev do? He watches Paro get married to someone else and drowns himself in alcohol.
In both the adaptations, the realization of standing up for love comes when he sees her marrying someone else. Was it out of love or was it a result of their egotistic nature?
The Relationship
In the story, Dev shared a relationship with two different women who had somewhat a similar character. Both of them were shown as strong, assertive and independent.
Dev and Paro were childhood friends turned lovers. Their love blossomed during the time they spent apart while Dev was studying abroad and Paro was back home.
In the original adaptations, their communication was restricted to letters. They wrote each other the ‘classic mushy love letters’. The modern day Dev and Paro used emails and telephony but the content of their conversation was quite erotic in nature.
This version also shows how the definition of love has slowly meandered towards sex. Both Paro and Chanda crossed their moral bounds for the sake of love. Chanda ends up making a sex tape with her then-boyfriend and Paro sends her naked pictures to Dev. The expression of love takes a totally different direction. From lighting an oil lamp as a symbol of her love to clicking pictures of her naked bosom, that is what Indian youth is now.
The strict social taboos that had governed the Indian way of life for thousands of years have all but disappeared now. These days a relationship between a boy and a girl does boil down to saucy chats/ sms and ultimately sex. You just can’t take sex off the table.
Life Does Not Often Give Second Chances
But in both versions, they did get a second chance at life and at love. Drowned in sorrow and depressed in love the male protagonist ended up at the door step of a sex worker. While he was brought there by his carousing friend in the previous adaptations, in the recent one it was by a PIMP (Chunni).
The dirty world then was shown as watching a girl dance at a brothel but this version gets realistic and ‘Dev’ lands up in the red light area of Paharganj, only to fall deeper and deeper into the sleazy world of drugs and prostitution. Not for a moment does he take stock of his life. Quite like the aimless youth in contemporary times.
The sex worker Chanda cares for Dev and eventually falls in love with him. Given those social mores, Dev could not accept a woman of that stature. He drinks himself to sickness in the old version and prefers to die at Paro’s doorstep.
The recent adaptation comes with a twist. Chanda infuses life in him and he warms up to a second chance at love but only to go into self destruction mode yet again. Caught between the traditional values he has been raised with and exposure to the west, he fails to see himself fit in this life and leaves once again.
His dysfunctionality finally is put to rest on a chance incident and he goes back to Chanda. His life turns a full circle with a woman triggering the self destruction and a woman rescuing him in the end. Life offers him a second chance and he takes it.
The Current Scenario
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.
