Dev.D: Desi Alienation
As part of the rites of passage in an engineering school in India, I read ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ in the mid-90s. As had (and I realized this later) an entire generation done before me possibly in the same rooms that I occupied. And very reassuringly, I found out a decade later, Holden Caulfield had held his ground in those rooms against the onslaught of a networked world, digital comics and graphic novels. The Catcher in the Rye is, of course, only to illustrate the point. For some it could be Kerouac’s ‘On the Road’ or Morrison’s ‘Wilderness’. Or the Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd – take your pick. For a generation earlier, it was possibly O’Hara’s ‘Appointment in Samarra’. This has amused me for long. For over three decades now, we have been slaves to an almost static symbol of alienation. We have been unique like everyone else in our generation – reading the same books, listening to the same music and thinking we’re different. For a nation that was once obsessed with all things ‘phoren’, we imported our angst and its representation as well.
I remember handing over ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ to a friend who steadfastly stayed away from everything that was a ‘must do’ at college. He finished the book and came back to me trying to understand how I could relate with the protagonist. I tried some feeble explanations that didn’t cut much ice with him. I realized he had a point. Alienation, while speaking a universal language, needs a local interpretation.
I searched for that interpretation over the years till I realized I have outgrown the need for it. I wondered if I would recognize it when I saw it. I saw traces of it in that dazzlingly original book ‘English, August’ and felt that was the closest we would ever get.
Till, this weekend when I watched Dev.D.
We finally get our local alienated protagonist whose actions seem to stem from no rational motivation and who is infuriatingly ungrateful. While I enjoyed the first half of the film, its humor and its irreverence (Dev calling his father Sattu), it is the second half that breaks new ground. Dev’s irrational expectations from love, his inability to manage any setback, ease with which he follows the path of least action and a remarkable proneness to characters in the twilight – all of them help create a true aimless, wandering and alienated Indian youth.
It isn’t necessary for the young to relate to Dev as it wasn’t for me to relate to Holden. Perhaps it isn’t desirable as well. But the role of great literature or cinema isn’t to mirror you but to help you understand yourself.
To help you realize that you’re not alone. That it’s fine to not understand your own actions, to insult those you love, to possess a false sense of superiority that masks your confusion and to be without a purpose at some point in your life. That hypocrisy and deception are natural. That physical and emotional intimacy can bring pain. That all adults are sluts.
It is all part of growing up.
And I am glad it is all part of growing up in Daryaganj and Punjab than in Agerstown or New York. For that, Anurag Kashyap deserves all the applauses.
Now, if only, he had ended it on a note of pain. We would have banished ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ forever.
Tags: Alienation, Anurag Kashyap, Dev D
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
very well written
Fyodor bhai had also dwelt with alienated protagonists but they stayed with pain ad failure and saratbabu also kept going on the same track, literature in cinema also followed with Ray doing Apur Sansar and telling us that alienation did happen to sheltered bengali juboks.
Today, Kashyap also puts up thhe same mirror to te Gen X. But they want to get over it and move on life too. As they say, Get a life man! Pain lingers but thhe world does not wait and neither do the women and their love.
“Alienation, while speaking a universal language, needs a local interpretation.”
I like that line very much.Generation X has been long fed by moral grounds and cultural inheritance stuff.The self destructing and rebel character of Dev of contemporary times has just given the local interpretation to the universal phenomenon.Hypocrisy,Identity crisis,emotional experiences are part of all the generation searching for an alien identity in the society.Inability of Dev to attach itself to anything is well documented by anurag in this movie.Subrat,You have written a great post revealing the grey areas of the characters of Dev D.They are not alien in the present times but a hideous part of ourselves.
when and why does a person feel alienated?? there lies the crux of the debate. in our close-knit family and the burden of culture never gives us a chance to miss anyone or to escape or the reason/excuse to get-away. and so we dont relate to alienation or lost-soul. dev is not grounded into realities and tats the reason for his alienation. the moment he felt he was not answerable to anybody and started acting on his own, he distanced himself from everyone
Subrat even before Holden was a glimmer in Salinger’s eye, RK Narayan had written the masterful “The Bachelor of Arts”. I have just started exploring Mulk Raj Anand and his “The Private Life of an Indian Prince” is a classic roman a clef centred around alienation.
This is by far the best review i have read.Amazing
Many people fail to understand the fact that, though the first half provides all the laughs and gags, its the second half which is more important, gruelling and so bloody near to the truth.Alienation is a part of it and kashyap has done an excellent job in capturing it.Hats off to him.This film is certainly a benchmark for a lot if things to come.
DEV D is like HEAD ON remade by karan johar (kidding). dev d is a failed attempt at making a relentlessly viscious, violent love story like HEAD ON. dev d is like mediocre mimicry made by a bunch of domesticated people who are trying hard to escape their middle classness. but the more they try to be hep and bohemian, the more their middle classnes stands out. but there are many moments where anurag’s and the actors brilliance seeps through all the mediocrity and banality.
i recommend dev d even though its just another failed hindi film. i might watch it again this week if only to look at mahi gill and kalki koechlin (8/10)
Very Well Put. Loved reading this piece.
brilliantly written. It’ll make me go back and read your previous posts.
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“But the role of great literature or cinema isn’t to mirror you but to help you understand yourself.”
– I always failed to give a convincing answer when asked why I thought something like a ‘No Smoking’ or ‘Waking Life’ were “superior” movies to ‘No Entry’ or ‘Singh is King’. This sentiment helped me articulate my thoughts.
yes, loved it for the new generation who have a Devdas to follow when they’re heartbroken or feel clueless. A devdas of our generation who gets back to life with as much zest as he went into drugs and depression. Good for the kids.
among the hundreds of posts / reviews i have read on dev D so far, this is by far my favourite. kudos.
hey subrat, do you blog elsewhere too?