Dev.D: Ib ke howega aggey yaar…
Disclaimer: This is an optimist filmi’s work of fiction. No offence meant to anybody, living, dead or tripping!
In the recent past 2 movies that moved me beyond my imagination were Luck By Chance & Dev.D. While I considered LBC to be a crash course to the insides of the Indian Film Industry, Dev.D became a crash course into taming / trying to tame my own demons. I’m thankful to the makers of both these films for the good they did to me. This post is definitely not a review, its just a musing of what happens to Indian Cinema post Dev.D. Ib ke howega aggey yaar…
Something within tells me that Dev.D is a landmark in Indian cinema. I am not getting into the nitty gritty of how & why it worked for me, as plenty has already been spoken about. Why Dev.D is a landmark, for me, is that it has stripped the Indian hero off the ‘dhai kilo ka haath‘ & the heroine off the ‘shiffon saree‘. It has strengthened the role of the song in the narrative & the bar has been raised for using songs in a film. Ainwi songs use karna is so uncool oye!
UTV Spotboy, that made Dev.D happen, might just get rid of the ’spotboy’ tag & make all their films with equal passion, creativity, trust & foresight. This will certainly inspire more production houses to join the ‘equal opportunity’ bandwagon & make way for better cinema. Dev.D has made ‘pushing the envelope’ so fashionable that anything that doesn’t push, will be looked down upon. Thankfully, the films lined up for 2009 seem to be pushing real hard.
As a writer myself, I now wonder, what kind of love stories would I write. Thanks to Dev.D, the holier-than-thou image of love, lust & relationships in general has been taken away. So now when you wanna fuck, you ask for a fuck (without the as***ix). The goddamn asterix, will be out of business. Will there be a Dev.D AD era & Dev.D BC era? Will I ever write a scene “cut to hero – serenading heroine in swiss alps”. I hope not. I dare not.
Had been insisting a buddy of mine (small-town-girl prototype), to watch DevD. Following is the transcript (corny but insightful) of the chat we had:
Me: hey, did u see dev.d
She: nope mene suna dev d bakvas movie hain
me: kis kambakht ne kaha, it has got 5 star rating in times of india
she: yeh mene suna achchi nahi hain, rotlu movie hain, anyways main dvd par dekh lungi
me: kya achcha nahi hai, kisne bola
she: yaar i haven’t watch main jab dekhungi tab bataungi, adult movie hain totaly
me: so, kaun adult nahi hai
she: i am a kid 
me: ho gaya kalyan
me: did u see trailer of dev.d?
she: haan, mujhe dekhna zroor hain, i will see
me: trailer dekh ke dar gayi bachchi
she: haan mujhe sharam agayi
me: ??? kis baat pe
she: main jab dekhungi jab mummy papa nahi honge he he he
This chat helped me decipher the typical Indian psyche. First reject, without any reasoning. Then experience it in the closet & finally fantasise, without owning up to it & bothering to get to the bottom of the issue & form a healthy opinion. But yes, sooner or later, in the open or behind closed doors, people will come to terms with the present state of the yuva of the country. And I am glad it happened.
And then, the man himself, Anurag Kashyap, among the ‘zafar khans’ & ‘romy rollys’ of Indian cinema, got lucky by chance. What happens to him? Will the industry embrace him with open arms or will it wait for him to falter. In an industry where equations change every Friday, it’s hard to tell. But yes, he took the path less taken & has left behind a trail that all aspirants can try & follow. Here’s wishing him all the best for Gulaal & all others that follow. Viva cinema!
Tags: Abhay Deol, Amit Trivedi, Anurag Kashyap, Dev.D, Indian Cinema, Kalki, Mahi Gill, The way ahead
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
“main jab dekhungi jab mummy papa nahi honge he he he” when will we grow up? good write up magic!
Hey dude…Like LBC (a deeply understood panorama of Bollywood), this post is a deeply understood panorama of the Dev D Era. I am sure, another movie like Dev D in Bollywood will take years to come. And the guy who can do it, will again be Anurag K.
I was glued to the seat while watching it, and it has stuck on beyond the two and a half hours odd.
Abhi Latest news to yeh hi hai ki Sudhir Mishra has shelved his movie “Aur Devdas” after watching Dev D with a Komment – “Dev D is such a brilliant film, that it doesnt make any sense to make a film on the same subject”
I dunno if he has actually shelved his film or if he has made such komment, but if he has done it..it make sense.
Great going Anuraag bhaiya…looking forward for some more Anu K flicks.
Cheers !!
~Ashu Bhai MAPRM Wale
@ ashu: hope u r sure abt the sudhir mishra bit… sounds scandalous!
@ yogi: i guess we hv a long way to go!
@ ashu: chk out the gulaal trailer. the future of Indian cinema looks brilliant!
Anurag Kashyap is rocking Bollywood. Was blown away by Gulaal trailor. Can’t wait!
Magik, I understand the point you are trying to make. In fact, I have many friends like this too. Even in Mumbai, I have met girls who cringed at Dev D. They said “It was embarassing to see with my parents”. Film viewing is still a family affair for most of India. And we need to know that most of India, most of which might not write on PFC, is ‘your friend’. Like you have mentioned, things happen in the closet. It is going to take time, yes. But as a society, are we prepared to handle freedom? Do we know our responsibilities? Pls dont get me wrong, I am not talking about educated and informed people like you and me. Unfortunately, we are in the minority. I am talking of the masses, most of whom are like Dev D – directionless, clueless, lost.. When they are given more stuff than they can handle, it can get scary. We dont even have the maturity to keep our own homes clean. We dont have the sense to even elect the right guys to lead the nation. I can only hope that as a people, at least as far as cinema is concerned, we know what to take home from a good piece of art. I do wish we know, because its only in a mature society that art can flourish. I would want to keep seeing Dev D’s getting made. Slowly but surely, change seems to be arrivingg
Well written Magik Bhai.Just saw the trailer of Gulaal & I’m now sure the future sounds promising
@ Arati: I appreciate your response & mean absolutely no offense. But this frnd of mine, is educated, is a webmaster in an IT co., but still due to her conservative upbringing, she reacted the way she did. I dont hold it against her & I agree that there will be a huge populace who will get it wrong. What pleases me most is that the change has begun. As u rightly put “Slowly but surely, change seems to be arriving”. Acdg to me, Dev.D will help in shedding inhibitions & help many people come out of the closet. Not only taking cinema further, it will also help us figuring out, what we stand for, culturally, socially, without the mask of chastity that we put on 24×7. It will also restore the lost dignity of people from the lower echelons of the society, if they look at it in a positive way. By protesting movie titles like Billu Barber, I am sure we aren’t getting anywhere as a nation.
@ Vinny & Sethu: Am looking fwd to Gulaal too! It is an unintended birthday gift from Anurag K. to me! Wink!!!
@ Arati, regarding the issue u raised, the same question was raised when we became independent in 1947. Many people, doubted if India would survive as a democratic nation at all. Many predicted its break up. But fact is after 60 yrs, we are a functional democracy. Oh sure there are a lot of things to be fixed, but fact is we have been managing to change rulers democratically, we have had stable Goverments, and we have been able to meet challenges.
“We dont have the sense to even elect the right guys to lead the nation.”
Well what do u say of George Bush, being elected twice, by a supposedly matured electorate in US. Or the rabidly right wing leaders comming to power in an even more educated and mature Europe.
The guys who get arrested for drunk driving or getting into brawls in the pubs, are not from the masses, but the “educated classes”. and i have seen supposedly “educated informed” people dirtying the streets, so lets not assume a moral high ground here.
As a society we may not be prepared as of yet to handle freedom, but how can we judge that without even giving freedom. I mean when you grant freedom there are bound to be people who misuse it, and to deal with them, we have the laws. See on the Net u have people openly posting, racist, xenophobic comments, but we cant take that as an excuse to actually block people from posting on Net, unless this is communist China.
Change will come, there will be upheavals, there will be clashes. There will be clash between the old and new. Yeah there might be guys like Dev D, but for every Dev D, there are 10 guys who behave in an equally responsible and matured manner.
“But this frnd of mine, is educated, is a webmaster in an IT co., but still due to her conservative upbringing, she reacted the way she did.”
Well Magik, there is a difference between knowledge and wisdom. I know people who work as scientists and are totally conservative in their views. The dubious theory of Eugenics, was propounded by William Shockley, a Noble Laureate and one of the most brilliant scientists ever. It depends on what background you come from, and how you react.
In fact people among the lower strata of society are less likely to have hang ups regarding caste or religion, rather than upper caste, educated Indians. Not because they have studied philosophy of “all men are equal”, but for them its a simple question of survival. I mean if i am a daily wage labor, i cant afford to look at what caste, creed or religion my employer is, because i need to survive.
@ RaSa: I so want to agree with you, but my own thoughts regarding the same is so garbled, i wud rather keep my trap shut! Thanks for sharing your thoughts though…
O Yaara, Meetha sa chadha hai bukhaar. Hoping ye fever sabko chadhe aur utare na. High time We grew up.
If this made away with asterix, wonder what will Gulaal do… Awesome trailer.
” I so want to agree with you, but my own thoughts regarding the same is so garbled, i wud rather keep my trap shut! Thanks for sharing your thoughts though…”
Not done Magik, u disappointed me. Come on i am not expecting ur views to be a xerox copy of mine, I am always game for discussion and debate. Whats up dude, u dont have confidence in ur own views? Not done.
Whats the fuckin’ deal with them?
I’m only 16 and I still went to watch it and I asked my parents to watch it and they loved it too
Dont know whether its coincidence or not!!! I faced the same experience while asking one of my friend(girl) the same question “hey have you seen Dev.D?”
Exceptions from yours case are
1.She is not a small town girl but a big town girl(Delhi and 24 years old)
2.Rest of the chat is exactly same Her Reason for not going into movie hall:She read the TOI review and learnt that it has adult contents, she has no problems in adult contents like nude pictures and all but SHE cant see those with her friends so she will wait for dvd and watch it alone!(her friends also cancelled it)
And Drop in DEV.D profit 7*150=1050 INR!
Magik :
A nice thoughtprovoking post. But Dev D is not conceptually pathbreaking IMO. It’s a bold film in terms of portraying sexuality but its not the first of its kind in that department. We’ve had films exploring sexuality since a long time. I’d like to point you in the direction of a movie called Anubhav starring Shekhar Suman. Though not in the same league technically as Dev D, conceptually, it was far ahead of its times. And though it didn’t set the cash registers ringing, it has quite a big closet fan following. There might be more but this was the one example that came to my mind immediately.
Dev D is more mainstream. And it’ll definitely fare better on the BO than Anubhav. But will it help people come out of the closet? Don’t think so. The change, when it comes, will come from elsewhere. It will come from education. It will come from the values that are passed on from one generation to another. It will come from healthy discussion between parents and children, between teachers and students as well as between peers. A movie can at the most be a mirror. And a mirror can never make a person look more beatiful than he/she is.
BTW…apologies for taking the discussion on your post on a tangent hereon. Couldn’t help it as the bigger picture being discussed between Arati & Ratnakar is something I’ve been thinking about a lot over the past couple of years.
Ratnakar : I was watching Anand Patwardhan’s Ram ke naam today and the interviews from the movie echoed your take on who is more likely to be closed and conservative apropos caste, religion, morality et al.
I was also discussing the recent incident in Mangalore on a discussion forum and noticed something that relates a lot to the same. There is a group of people who are going to send pink underwear to members of the Rama Sene. And this “movement” has been equated with Gandhigiri by some so-called educated liberals. A trivial campaign aimed at publicising the sagging readership stats of Tehelka is being equated with the greatest gift the nation has given to the world. Why? Because its a non-violent protest. They forget the fact that true Gandhigiri targets the evil and not the doer. And because there are thousands of people who have signed up for it, so it must make sense. They overlook the fact that these thousands signed up for the novelty of it and not because they truly believe in a non-violent protest. What needs to change, and change soon is our ability to think for ourselves and not live in dogma. And till that happens, most of us, even though our daily actions might come across as rational and responsible, will be a Dev D. And probably Arati was referring to this phenomenon when she expressed doubts about our ability to handle freedom.
I also have a suggestion for the site owners. Whenever I type a comment, I always separate paragraphs with a blank line between them. But when the comment appears on the page, the line vanishes and my entire comment appears as one humongous block. Could you please look into this?
Caught Dev D last night. Gold. I dont see anything scandalous in what is shown in the movie. It is EXACTLY how couples are today. It is exactly what couples talk today. Infact, the movie shows relationships of today in an under-stated way. Ironically, reality is actually much more scandalous than shown in the movie.
Ofcourse not all generations can quite understand that. Infact I know a lot of parents would think ‘kya hamare bacche yeh sab kar rahe hain?’ But haan. Kar rahein hain. So nothing wrong in showing it. It encapsulates ‘today’.
Brilliant. And I don’t know how much Boyle’s influence was in shootin some of those scenes with Dev trippin… but heck those were awesome!
The Narcissist,
I have experienced the same and I found it to be a case when I use IE. When I used FF, it was proper and well spaced. Found the same problem elsewhere on blogger too! I am not sure, so don’t take my word for it dude. All the best
@ yogi:- Hey dude…i have read the same in a news paper about sudhir shelving his flick “Aur devdas”.
Here goes the link
http://movies.indiainfo.com/article/0902122015_sudhir_mishra_shelves_aur_devadas/304726.html
Still I attached a disclaimer in my comment – “I dunno if he has actually shelved his film or if he has made such komment, but if he has done it..it make sense.”
Now only Mr Mishra can confirm this.
~ Ashu Bhai MAPRM Wale.
Hey…I saw Dev D first day first show…believe me, I have even laminated the damn ticket counterfoil,because it was such an awesome movie.
I am new to PFC,and had a question to ask Anurag…
WHY DIDNT DEV DIE?
I thought the movie would have a typical requiem for a dream ending with Dev missing some part of his limb or some other thing like that…sorry if it sounds retarded,but I wanted to see Dev die!
@ rallyrockstar: i guess that is the exact reason why dev.d has become the success that it is!
@Magik: Yup I agree. Protesting the Billu Barber title was ridiculous. I mean, what else do we call a man who cuts hair for a living? And if these guys take the name of their profession as an offense, really, it’s their problem and narrow thinking!
@Ratnakar: Point taken, but I was in no way meaning that the USA made a wise decision by electing Bush twice. My talk was not at all about any other nation. I was simply pointing out that as a people, we have a lot of growing up to do. Having said that, I am stil optimistic. I know we are getting there but these extreme reactions to the smallest things – like opposing the V day celebrations and protesting the word ‘Barber’ – these instances scare me. I sometimes wonder if many of our countrymen are getting more and more ritualistic and regressive every day, rather than moving ahead. I know this may be off the topic, but all these things impact our cinema. Dev D being a landmark film in times like these, is reason why I mention them. Sorry for the long post!!
“if these guys take the name of their profession as an offense, really, it’s their problem and narrow thinking!”
there… u nailed it, bang on the head!
“First reject, without any reasoning. Then experience it in the closet & finally fantasise”
So right, Magik! So right!
@ Kenny: glad u agree! U hv been missing from the action for a while now? kung fu training in kuala lumpur eh?
PS: Collected it from IMDb
Some interesting observations on which age groups liked Dev D. More than men…women seem to have liked it more (but the sample size is 800 only and women are even less). But nevertheless interesting facts…
Males 757 9.1
Females 24 9.4
Aged under 18 17 5.0
Males under 18 16 5.1
Females under 18 1 1.0
Aged 18-29 714 9.2
Males Aged 18-29 695 9.2
Females Aged 18-29 19 9.5
Aged 30-44 48 8.5
Males Aged 30-44 45 8.5
Females Aged 30-44 2 9.5
Aged 45+ 2 9.6
Females Aged 45+ 2 9.6
@ Cherish: Thanks so much for sharing this info. It tells a lot abt the changing tastes. but I dunno how much can we trust these online surveys (if dis was online, dat is)
@Narcissist…
couldnt agree with you more. Loved every line you wrote.
Sexual revolutions comes with a steep price. You want to see teens grow into confident, independent and self respecting adults before they can indulge in sexual activities. Freedom
comes with a ton of responsibility man !!!
@Cherish ..am not stunned at all that more MEN want sex to come out of the closet. whats more exciting than free love without responsibility.
Modern thinking has never gotten more warped than it is these days…Before casting all our traditional and cultural values we need to understand them well. We are in a unique position in India straddling ancient and modern.
Parents in US are trying every trick in the book to educate their teens and delay their “experiments with sex”. Be it oral sex, drugs and drinking, date rape drugs the downside of early sex and bad choices are too HUGE to ignore any more.
Modern thinking is not low-waisted jeans and tank tops or free love or smoking your lungs out or drinking. Neither do we need crude behaviour instead of foreplay. Live-ins are not an answer to not wanting to commit.
There is nothing unfashionable in being conventional and traditional.
Anyone who looks at this please tell someone responsible that on the site indiafm someone has put out the whole story of “Gulaal” in the Movie Previews Section. Its in so much detail that it will take away the freshness that a movie should have. PLEASE DO SOMETHING about this SPOILER…
dude the man looked quite nice yaar! i’m not gay, but i thought anurag really looked good and i wanted to see more of him in LBC. disclaimer, i’m not a fanboy, not a cinephile, not a writer or anything more than just an ordinary viewer looking for “emotional cumshots”. i did not get no smoking AT ALL, but it did get me intrigued towards the maker. lol i loved how he swore off that critic dude.
but this post is about his acting. i really hope he does more movies, i heard on bollywoodhungama, that site that loves the dude
that he’s coming in more movies. in one of them he’s a paan chewing good for nothing or something, and i can’t wait.
@ darkndusky (30) : Thanks
@ Santosh (20) : I last used IE in 2003. Have been using FF ever since and this problem still persists.
OZ : What platform is this blog on? Maybe I could check for a solution there.
Conservative girls = backward = we need to evolve = mature….
I sometimes feel that educated people are highly narrow minded. They can look at things only one way. Its like a horse which can see only some 50 degrees forward. The shy girl that you described is atleast ‘open’ to see the movie in closet. This about it.
Further, what makes you think that these type of conservative girls are ‘unhappy’ in life? They will be 10 times more at ‘peace’ than eductated like us.
It all depends on how we analyze things – Till last year every one thought ‘Growth’ in US is the only right thing in this world to aim for (financial angle). Freedom. Freedom. Freedom. Today people are teaching morals – Save money, be prudent, regulate, control, etc.
Dont you think everything circular in this world?
@ Critic: i agree with you. duniya badi gol hai, is mein kitne jhol hai! Wink!!!