Romancing with Life: An Autobiography
By Dev Anand
Penguin Books India.
Pages: 438, Price: 695.
‘Raju’of ‘Guide’ has been immortalized by Dev Anand. The transition of a Casanova into a saint who brings rain to a parched famine-struck terrain has been fleshed out with great panache by the erstwile romantic. And this is not his only claim to fame. This Gregory Peck look-alike is a consummate actor who has given some great performances in films like ‘Baazi’ ‘Jaal’ ‘Jewel Thief’, ‘Tere Ghar ke Samne’ et al. The list is endless. This bright and ageless star on the Indian film firmament has also directed some unusual films like ‘Hare Rama Hare Krishna’, ‘Des Pardes’, ‘Heera Panna’ ‘Hum Naunjawan’ boldly analyzing divergent social issues that were spoken of only in whispers. Six decades of cinema does not seem to have dampened the enthusiasm and spirits of this creator-director-actor who even at 82 is running full steam ahead.
‘Romancing with Life’, the much awaited autobiography of Dev Anand gives us a glimpse of ‘Dev-aan’ the person behind the public persona of the legendary film star. A montage of reminiscences strung together in a beguiling pattern, the autobiography is written in a simple conversational style that creates an empathetic bond between Dev Anand and the readers. The reader sits with Dev as he listens to his father reciting the Koran, counts the stars lying on a charpoy on the terrace in Gurdaspur with the future star, murmurs a shy lovelorn hello to ‘Usha’ in the college of Lahore and walks the footpaths in Bombay waiting for a ‘break’. The reader feels Dev’s dejection as he sifts through war correspondence for a living and later becomes party to the adulation that Dev Anand receives after ‘Ziddi’, the film that made him a romantic hero.
As we travel down memory lane with Dev Anand some reminiscences smack of narcissism and seem to find place in the autobiography for no earthly reason except to highlight a star’s romantic proclivities. But, Dev Anand has defended himself against the charge of self-obsession stating with child-like candor that he is a ‘deity to his millions of fans’ and his memoir is merely to ‘honor that image’. So the star ingeniously says ‘My best moments with myself are when I am in front of my mirror in the bathroom’.
But if we make an honest attempt to look beyond the image of a ‘larger-than-life-hero’, feted by hysterical fans, we find a Dev Anand who feels utter anguish when his dear brother, ‘Goldilocks’, passes away or when his much-loved friend Guru Dutt ends his life. Dev Anand, like ‘Raju’ is in search of ‘that special ray of sunshine that makes life worth living’. His romance with life, it seems would never end.
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