Where to begin? Devdas was a Bengali novel written by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay in 1917. It was first brought to film in 1928 by Naresh Mitra and then several times over by P.C. Barua in the 1930s. Up until 2002, when Sanjay Leela Bhansali remade the film, the 1955 version was the most known. Starring Dilip Kumar and directed by Bimal Roy, it's easily one of the best Indian films ever made. I'm a sucker for gloomy black-and-white melodramatic 1950's films, as exhibited by my obsession with Pyaasa, and this is probably the best known of the genre. As far as the plot, basically: childhood sweetheards, rich man + poor girl, family objects and sends him away to the city, gives up on love, object of affection is married off to skeevy old man for money, he finds out, becomes a raging alcoholic frequenter of brothels, prostitute/dancer falls hopelessly in love with him, doesn't give a shit, dies on the way to his love's doorstep. Incidentally, Dilip Kumar was offered Guru Dutt's role in Pyaasa but turned it down as he was type-casted as the "tragedy king". 1955:
Now, Anurag Kashyap is working on a remake of Devdas set in modern times entitled "Dev D". This will be the most drugged out version of Devdas the world has seen. The trailer just came out:
All of this reminded me of some stuff I wrote a year ago about a self-destructing Indian kid in New York - write about what you know, right? I was reading "Unaccustomed Earth" by Jhumpa Lahiri and after enjoying Interpreter of Maladies and Namesake I guess I got fed up with her classist writing and the lack of any working class Indians, ever. There was also a short story about an alcoholic Indian kid that went to Cornell and he didn't seem nearly alcoholic enough. Upon reading it again I see that I drew upon Dutt's Vijay and Chattopadhyay's Devdas. Here's a photo of Kal Penn who would definitely NOT play the main character Gautham if my shite was ever brought to film but will suffice as a visual prop so you don't see me in your head while you read it. Composite characters, yeah... there are parts of me in this dude, sure, but also parts of everyone I hope.
Nights like those would make him talk about swearing off alcohol and drugs and the lot as a whole. Talk about going into hiding to become a better man. Running away to India. Talk about being Buddhist, or maybe just a better Hindu. Talk about working out more. Talk about becoming a Vegan, for his body is his temple. Talk about reading more poetry; Rimbaud, Baraka, Rumi, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, and Kalidasa. Talk about sleeping earlier. Talk about how he'll make his family proud one day – make it up to them. Talk about how he would spend more time around the house he grew up in and fix things when necessary. Talk about how Gautham would find that girl and she would help him change. Talk about how she'd feel safe around him, and comfortable. Talk about being comfortable around her and safe around himself. Talk about painting more - studying Husain, the Mughal Artists of Akbar and Jahangir's ateliers, Duchamp, and Basquiat. Talk about writing more - reading more books and less blogs. Reading 5 Russian authors of his choice. Talk about watching more films - not movies, films. Talk about dinner parties and brunch. Talk about having the ability to have "a few drinks" the way he heard people talk about but couldn't understand. Talk about coming out of hiding when he was done talking about and had started doing. When Friday rolled around and Gautham had a drink or five in him, he'd yearn for something else for this can't possibly be the MOST fun one could have. Was that it? Really? Was there any more fun to be had? Anything? And then someone would talk about "blow" and the trajectory of the evening would change. That "talk about" was the only one that consistently ended up being one of the things people stopped talking about and started doing within the hour.
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