The Man Who Loved Too Much - My Thoughts on Devdas (1956)

Today I wish to speak of a film that often leaves me speechless…. The love that’s depicted, the pain that’s shown, the sufferings that are immersed in that film never made me gutsy enough to understand it or to see it without feeling the pain or the suffering myself….. The film was Devdas and I consider it the greatest of all films made by Bimal Roy other than maybe Bandini. In fact, I would rank it among the top 50 films in Hindi Cinema ever….

On love, the sound of love brings pleasure to the face of every man. Its resonant tones are said to be the perfect remedy to a depressed soul. Many a great poet and writer has extolled the virtues of love and called it divine, heavenly and attributed miracles to the feeling of love. It has been called the harbinger of happiness, the messenger of good times and the reason for celebrations. But sadly and unfortunately like all good things, anything taken in excess is harmful; even something as divine as love.

It’s strange but if love has the power to turn a beast into a human being, it also has the power to put a total end to all things humane. If love has been the ambassador for peace, it has also been the cause for war. Love if requited, can be a boon as sweet as ambrosia, but if unrequited, can also be as poisonous as cyanide and can take one to imminent doom.

You know what, I have always had this ongoing feud with my friends on love. Why? Simply because I could not understand love.

I often thought and thought hard of what it meant to be in love…. Why people loved and what was the need for that love? Why would someone gladly accept the deepest pains and the most depressing of all frustrations for the sake of someone else? Why would the love for someone who would never be able to reciprocate your love make you be ready to destroy yourself completely to the altar of that love?

The question was universal – the answer surprisingly was not! It’s subjective and differs from person to person but one thing remains constant as a great poet once has said:

Ye Ishq Nahin Aasaan; Bas Itna Samajh Lijiye
Ek Aag Ka Dariya Hai Aur Doob Ke Jaana Hai!

I have always laughed on love; maybe because it never crossed my paths and when it did, often in the end I would find out that it was never meant to be. Somehow I was always immune of that feeling … maybe because I always felt that it’s better to be loved and lost and than to have loved and lost. And what stops one from moving on? Why should someone not move on? Why should one stay back in eternity for the sake of someone who could not due to many reasons not stay back and be with you?

To be frank, initially, I hated the characterization of Devdas and felt it to be the most depressing and hopeless character created ever. I considered him to be nothing but a loser – a hopeless one and I was not prepared to accept it.

How could someone love so deeply that he could destroy his self for the sake of that person and still be so ruthless to that love? How could one accept the love of one would could die for his love but run away from her at the time when she needed him the most? Isn’t this love nothing but a ploy? Isn’t it only a mask on the face of a calculating, ruthless and cruel man? I did feel so but somehow the pain of the heart makes it so difficult for us to accept that facet; the way the man destroyed himself makes us feel that “No, that was not his intention”……. However much I may dislike Devdas, somewhere I am drawn close to him…..

Devdas is not any ordinary man but somewhere that man exists within me, within you and within everyone who has ever loved anyone even if that love was for a very short period… even a day; but the greatness and the sadness of that tragic hero lies in his being able to stay true to that moment.

Devdas deals with the effects of an unrequited love on a person not strong enough to confront it or move on in life. Never before and never after has a hero’s role been depicted as darkly and with so much of a defeatist attitude. The character of Devdas is loosely modeled on the Grecian tragedy heroes who suffer on account of destiny and therein lies the vulnerability of the character. Unlike the Shakespearean heroes, Devdas is not a creation of his own errors but suffers since he fails to connect to a changing milieu. On a superficial level, Devdas may appear to be the story of a loser, a man who lost in love and could never accept that he had lost. But actually, it’s the story of every man who has failed in some attempt and refused to give it another shot for the fear of an encore. But strangely enough, though he suffered and suffered alone, to some extent he himself was a reason for that suffering; not because he could not love enough but because he could never rebel enough. What stopped Devdas from rebelling? His love and that was the greatness of his love…..

Indeed the women in his life were stronger than him, indeed they were more independent than him; indeed they could move on, while Devdas stood transfixed in his immutability but what finally makes him strong and his love pure is the fact that he stayed on….. he could have accepted the single-minded devotion of Chandramukhi but would that have been love or would that have been a compromise…. To the simple mind of a loser…. It was better to love and die loving than to compromise on his love….

The great Majrooh once said:

Jo Unki Tamanna Hai, Barbaad Ho Jaa
Ae Dil Mohabbat Unse Nibha De
Marte Hain Yunh Marne Waale Jahaan Mein
Unhe Tu Raah-E-Mohabbat Sikha De

And to no one does it apply more than to Devdas……

The film is based on a novel written by the great Sarat Chandra and like all other works of the great writer, his success lies in creating a character that not only envelops us in a blanket of empathy but also reminds us about some incidents of a past better forgotten.

Dilip Kumar as Devdas stamps his name on the role. One cannot imagine any other actor in that role and that is the hallmark of the performance. To put it succinctly, Dilip is Devdas and Devdas is Dilip. Never has any character been so closely identified with an actor and that is the thespian’s greatest achievement, no, not even Anarkali!

The tragedy king has scaled new heights of emotions with his performance in his movie and his ‘death’ scene is a three-course instruction in acting to wannabe actors. Watching him drunk, moving down the streets of Calcutta (Kolkata), trying to remember and simultaneously erase the memories of his old paramour and you will understand why there cannot be any who can challenge his performance as Devdas.

One another scene, which deserves special mention, is the scene, wherein he’s trying to meet Paro for one last time before he dies. The agony of a person hopelessly lost in love is to be seen to be believed. No doubt, he penetrates your psyche and makes you feel his frustration, agony and misery all the way to the end. The pain that he exudes when he states in his imitable style : “Woh Shaadi Ki Raah Pe Chali Gayi; Main Barbaadi Ki Raah Pe Chala Gaya”…. And I can feel a silent tear dropping from my eyes for a grief that I can understand and feel with the deepest of passions….. the pain and suffering is all there, the hurt is all there but also is the fact that the man is determined to punish his own self to the extents possible….

When Devdas says “Kaun Kambakht Bhoolne Ke Liye Peeta Hai; Main To Iss Liye Peeta Hoon Ki Mujhe Yaad Rahe” – one can feel the extent of his love, the sacrifice he’s ready to make, his weakness at not being able to break the age-old caste and community taboos but his resolve and determination to punish his own self with death for that weakness – and therein lies the love of Devdas – Trampled by caste and community considerations but exalted by the depth of it’s purity and the destruction it brings on himself….. yet another scene that one cannot forget is one wherein Devdas loses his cool and hits Paro with his fishing line in such a manner that it mars her beauty. One has to see that one scene to understand the pain of the actor.

Suchitra Sen as Paro performs her role with a quiet dignity. In the role of a woman, who sacrifices her love at the altar of her family and who in a moment of misguided vengeance throws away her love only to repent later, Suchitra is mindblowing. This was a role that had several severe contradictions and to perform the role as well as to ensure that the audience reciprocated its feelings was no small task but Suchitra handles the same with complete finesse. The scene where she tries to force Devdas into eloping with her and again the scene where she tries to reprimand him on his drinking habits are a classic case of intuitive acting. Suchitra was always a big name in Bengali cinema and it’s unfortunate that despite such a brilliant tour-de-force performance she failed to create for herself a niche in Hindi Cinema. One scene that I can never forget in the movie and that shows the truth of their love is when in a symbolic gesture of emotional duress, after hearing of Devdas death, she sprints to the wall to catch a last glance of the dying man only to be stopped by the custodians of the Samaj in the form of a closing door. Therein lies her tragedy…. To love but not to be able to accept it and therein lies her side of the suffering; to have everything and still be with nothing.

Of course she is arrogant, of course she is egoistic but she is still a woman and more than anything a woman who can love……

Vyjayanthimala as Chandramukhi, the courtesan with a heart of gold is absolutely divine. The role of Chandramukhi is a difficult one to perform since the hero’s, as well as the author’s fascination with Paro hardly gives the role, the forum to put across its feelings in a firm and convincing manner. The actress however seems unfazed by this handicap and astonishingly manages to steal the thunder from the author-backed role of Paro. Her’s is a role of a woman pining away in silence for a man - enamoured irreversibly with another woman, who cannot be achieved - but still refusing to accept her loss to that shadow. A role, later apprised by many actresses in later movies, it’s noteworthy that none could bring to their performance the purity and nobility of character that transcends a love to divine proportions and which is the hallmark of Vyjayanthimala’s performance. When she sings : Jisse Tu Qubool Kar Le” you can feel the frustration of the woman who loves and is still unable to prove her love…. Superb performance

Motilal as Chunnilal, a drunkard friend of Devdas plays his role with his characteristic flamboyance. Watching this vintage performance from this great actor, one is well aware of the adage that ‘old wine always tastes better’. To his credit, the actor manages to turn a seemingly inconsequential side role to a performance-de-tour and this is his finest hour. Not many would concur with the statement that Devdas was as much a creation of Chunnilal’s whims and fancies as was he a creation of Paro’s betrayal, but that is the truth of the matter. The role required a certain degree of carefree behaviour, which could enlighten the deep recesses of the hero’s traumatic psyche and at the same time attract him to his doom. Motilal delivered it with élan. A little overstatement in a loud role such as his would have been enough to kill the role and the movie but the veteran manages to portray his role to the perfect decimal.

Motilal was one of the finest actors of his time and there is no doubt that all the greats wanted to appear with him and test their mettle against each other at least once…. The final meeting with Devdas on the train is a superb scene and shows how a moment’s indiscreet comment can make one destroy his own self completely

S D Burman appears in fine mettle in the movie. The way he has used the rich sonorous tilt of Talat Mehmood in “Mitwa” is commendable. Talat Mehmood was one of the best voices in the Hindi film industry of the 50s and this song is the final ultimate zenith of collaboration between these two versatile geniuses. Hear this song in silence – and you will feel the pain of a broken heart enter your realms with the flow of the sound just like the flow of water on the sands. There was never and there will never be a more deeper song of anguish and pain of unrequited love than this sublime song that’s more a cry of a lover’s heart than a song.

SD follows up with another Lata gem “Jise Tu Qubool Karle”, one of the best songs on frustration in love. The way this song has been created and then filmed speaks volumes of the genius of the great filmmaker. The staggering walk of Devdas, the following gaze of Chandramukhi and the subtle but deep presence of Paro in the background of our minds renders this song with a powerful imagery of it’s own. Just like the way Radha kept looking for Krishna in the woods after his departure, this song speaks volumes for the love of Chandramukhi for Devdas and the love of Devdas for Paro

The powerful imagination of that deep Radha-Krishna love is further accentuated with the Geeta Dutt song “ Aan Milo, Aan Milo, Shyam Saanwaare…. Aan Milo” which subtly suggests the purity of Devdas love by comparing it with the greatest love ever – that of Radha from Krishna….

Bimal Roy, the greatest director of Hindi Cinema impresses yet again with a movie as dark as life and as deep as an ocean. None could have envisaged the depths of the book or portrayed it so truthfully on screen, without compromising the premise of the novel and therein lies the greatness and richness of the director. Each and every scene in the movie is a lyrical representation of love and loss and the stamp of the director is evident in even the slightest gesture of the protagonists. One of his major achievements in the movie is his effective delineation of the roles played by Suchitra and Vyjayanthimala, in such a manner that both appear as full blooded individuals in their own right.. His success can be judged from the fact that 50 years down the line and after many more Devdas’ his Devdas still remains the definitive, classic and purist choice of the author’s interpretation on screen. In an era when love was worshipped and nobody had the guts to portray its seamier side, when happy endings were the norm and not the exception, where optimism was the norm, it was one man who stood and turned conventional wisdom on his head and in the process created history. This movie is the hallmark of a genius director and the perfect culmination of his association with the legendary Dilip Kumar.

One cannot end this review without appreciating Hrishikesh Mukherjee for his deft editing…. The way in which he creates the image of a psychic telepathy is just too much…. For once the love that could not be requited shows itself stronger than all the other considerations of caste, creed and community that were always stronger in reality and effective in killing off the love that was……

An advice to all: Before ditching or after getting ditched, watch this movie. It may not get you back your love but it may save you from creating another Devdas.