THE HUE AND CRY ABOUT "DEVDAS"

Devdas ! Devdas! Devdas! There is so much hue and cry about Anurag Kashyap's Dev.D, based on Sarat Chandra's Debdas. Am a avid participant of Passion for cinema forum and every one has their own view about how the new, out of the box Devdas should be made, and some of them are really hillarious. Imagine Devdas doing comedy!

Now there has already been around 9-10 remakes of Devdas since the time it was written in 1917:

Devdas (1928 film), directed by Naresh Mitra, Phani Burma as Devdas, Tarakbala as Parvati or Paro and Niharbala/Miss Parul as Chandramukhi.
Devdas (1935 film), directed by P.C. Barua, starring himself as Devdas, Jamuna as Parvati or Paro and Chandrabati Devi as Chandramukhi.
Devdas (1936 film), directed by P.C. Barua, starring K.L. Saigal as Devdas, Jamuna as Parvati or Paro and Rajkumari as Chandramukhi.
Devdas (1953 Telugu film) (also known as "Devadasu"), directed by Vedantam Raghavaiah, starring Akkineni Nageswara Rao as Devdas and Savitri as Parvati.
Devdas (1955 film), directed by Bimal Roy, starring Dilip Kumar as Devdas,Suchitra Sen as Paro, and Vyjayantimala as Chandramukhi.
Devdas (1979 film) (also known as "Debdas"), directed by Dilip Roy, Soumitra Chatterjee as Devdas, Sumitra Mukherjee as Parvati or Paro and Supriya Choudhury as Chandramukhi.
Devdas (2002 Bengali film), directed by Shakti Samanta, starring Prasenjit Chatterjee as Devdas, Arpita Pal as Parvati or Paro and Indrani Halder as Chandramukhi.
Devdas (2002 film), Bollywood film directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, starring Shahrukh Khan as Devdas, Aishwarya Rai as Parvati or Paro and Madhuri Dixit as Chandramukhi.
Untited Devdas Japanese remakeDaimaru(Devdas) Himiko(Parvati) And Koyubi (Chandramukhi)
Devdas (1937 film), Assamese movie Directed by P.C. Baruah with Mohini as Chandramukhi,Chatterjhee as Devdas and Zubeida as Parvati.

So imagine what a hit the character Devdas was despite being submissive, despondent and at times effeminate. People thronged to watch him drown himself in whiskies, and in prostitutes for the only woman he ever loved. For the woman who he had to let go because of his own meekness, because he couldn't fight himself and his own father.

There is a Devdas in all of us! We are trying to over come our own inner demons and weaknesses through various means sometims by turning towards God, by becoming spiritual and sometime by drowning in alcohol and drugs.. So at the end of the day we all are weak, or we would n't need anything to hold on to.

But what about LOVE! Love during 30's, 50's, 70's was impregnable. That's one of the primary reasons that Devdas was such a sure shot success- Love during those times was defined!

Now in 2007, the very definition of love has changed. Its become short and insecure and power oriented, ambition oriented. Its stymied and aggreived and aggravated. There is no patience for love. There is no patience for anything. Everthing has become so shallow, radical, and self centered!

But still love is love, its above money its above ambition its above everything. But how many people in today's world will agree with me. I bet not many!

Love is still the same, its we who have changed!

So I am wondering will the new Dev D survive this "two minute maggie noodle generation"

Well, we will have to wait and watch!!