With Dev Anand

I am on right side of Dev Anand and touch him on the shoulder to invite attention. We were then talking about his Prem Pujari.

We love you, Dev Anand!

by Rajbir Deswal
DEV Anand never looked more pleasant to me than when receiving the Dada Sahib Phalke Award at the hands of President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. Being an ardent fan of the Tragedy King, I have only been an admirer of Dev Anand despite some of the “flop-sides” of the man and his mannerisms. But it occurs to me that it was largely because of this deportment that many cinema lovers liked his screen presence — a fact that he cashed in on even in his flop films.
While the frontal gap in his denture, a la Mrs Slip Slop or, nearer home, Asha Parekh, enhanced the magnetic effect in romantic scenes, as some people believe, his protruding lower lip while executing emotions made him look intolerable. His rolling of the perfectly rounded eyeballs added confusion to his performance. Yet, he was liked.
His gait, employing a three-foot swing to the left and right, made him look the biggest drunkard on earth. Coupled with this zigzagging, the drooping shoulders made him a creature deserving sympathy. Still he was adored.
His dialogue delivery always ran in the fast forward mode. The notation and pitch falling and rising every now and then as if someone was writhing in pain made the audiences lend an extra ear attempting to decipher what he was saying. Even then he was admired.
Added to all this, his way of dressing and decking gave inferiority complex to those who boast of having a sartorial sense. His scarves, his headgear, his jackets, his chosen design or pattern in a particular cloth, black buttons with scoffed collars, black seams of his stitched apparel; everything had a Dev Anand mark on it. And he was rightly “impersonated”.
Old timers recall, although he denied it in a recent TV interview, that he was advised against wearing a red tie with a black suit since the combination could prove fatal to certain swooning onlookers of the opposite sex. His raised puff of hair, resembling perching of a sparrow, made people pirates of Dev Anand’s style of balon ki chiriya bithana! Obviously he was copied.
His finds, including Zeenat Aman, Tina Munim et al confirmed his exploration of freshness, ensured permanence of charm and an anticipated success of the “discoveries”. Above all his being the one whose one single glance on a “thing of beauty made joy for ever” made many a man envy him. Nevertheless, they adored him.
That Dev Anand refuses to age gives me a naughty flash of imagination. No wonder he had said, “They decorated me with the Dada Phalke Award whereas I deserved Chacha Phalke one because the latter has more youthful connotations.” We love you Dev Anand.