Dev - Freak

The idea to contemporise Devdas came to me a couple of years ago. My intention at the time was to explore the drug culture that existed and still exists in the city of Bombay. I grew up there and so for me it is my home and my identity.

Devdas is a classic book and to be honest I had not read it at that time. All I had seen was the film SLB had made and my friend Vikram had worked on it. He told me that in the book Paro and Chandramukhi actually never meet. That inspired my own ‘adaptation’ of a classic tale. For me it was an opportunity to pick a subject that would bridge the “generation gap,” work on a “commercial” bollywood subject and thereby make this a “family film.”

Now I know what you are thinking. How come a film that not only deals with the sensitive issue of drug abuse but also has a prostitute as a positive character be a family film? For me, it was about denial.

Have you noticed how many a times people ignore a problem hoping that it would just go away? It of course never does and by the time you decide to face it, it becomes worse! I pondered a lot about human behaviour and I had the luxury to do that because the story for the subject was already there. I just had not read the book and so I bought a very poor English adaptation of it from the ‘Parle Book Center’ (where I’ve bought all my school books from the time I spent in school).

The perfect person for the job of writing it was Vikram Motwane. He had worked on SLB’s film and more importantly he is super talented and my childhood friend. But I didn’t approach him. We were fighting at the time and I was pissed off with him. My other friend who is a very talented writer is Devika Bhagat. She had written ‘Manorama Six Feet Under’ and was also working on a few other projects. Being equally talented as Vikram and being a woman I thought it might be interesting to get a woman’s perspective on a very chauvinistic subject. I narrated it to her and she loved the idea. Now I just had to get a producer and a director attached to it.

Being written off as a ‘flop’ actor not many producers were interested in me. So I thought about getting the director and I had no doubt about who could pull it off. I called Anurag and told him I had a story to narrate to him. We met at the club lounge of the Marriot while the football finals were being played on the LCD screens at the venue. Over the next two hours we drank and I narrated it to him.

Whenever I’ve narrated this subject to people, I’ve always placed it in one of two locations. Bombay or L.A. and after each narration I would ask people which book or film this was based on. No one ever guessed and each time I’d reveal the name, the light of realisation would dawn on their faces. Anurag’s face didn’t just light up, it exploded and for the next thirty minutes he just kept quiet. Then he said that he wanted to make it and Vikram was the guy to write it. I couldn’t disagree with him. If that’s what the director wanted then that’s what he was going to get. Devika still hasn’t fully forgiven me. But she loves me and I her, so it all worked out in the end.

I titled this essay ‘Dev Freak’ because I thought I was going to write about the character and the motivations behind his actions but instead I’ve written about the process of getting this film made. I don’t know why I ended up doing that, I guess it’s not a good thing to drink beer on an empty stomach. But then come to think of it, I have to be a bit ‘freaky’ to have done such a thing. Or maybe I’m stretching it a bit. Either way I do want to speak about the character and share my views on him but that would be another piece and another day to reach out to you. Plus I’m not drunk enough to do that.