Evergreen actor Dev Anand ‘Dharam Dev Pishori Anand’ passed away in London last Saturday night. He was 88. Born on September 26, 1923 in Punjab, he was famous for his unique style and dialogue delivery. He had a matchless zest for life and his mantra in life was - “Main Zindagi ka Saath Nibhata Chala gaya” a song from his film ‘Guide’.
Dev Anand has a huge fan following and many well known Indian politicians, actors and actresses are his diehard fans. Amitabh Bachchan said on twitter that “Anand's death leaves a void never perhaps to be filled again." British-Indian Novelist Salman Rushdie posted, "I grew up watching your films. Sorry to say goodbye."
In his career spanning across decades Dev Anand has played the lead in movies like Guide, Jewel thief, Taxi driver, Baazi, CID, Paying guest, Johny mera naam and Hare Rama hare Krishana. He actively worked for the Indian Film Industry for about 6 decades.
He made his debut as an actor in 1946 in Hum EK Hain which was a great hit and the next year he released another hit movie Ziddi which gave him enormous hype and he soon found a place in the industry as a Superstar.
In the year 2001 and 2002 simultaneously, Dev Anand sahab was honoured with the prestigious Padma Bhushan Award and the Dada Saheb Phalke Award for his spectacular contribution to Indian cinema. He has also won Filmfare Awards for his films ‘Guide’ and ‘Kaala Paani’. Later on his movie Guide was sent as India’s official entry to the Oscars.
He was famously known as the ‘evergreen romantic superstar’ and also won two ‘Lifetime Achievement Awards in 1966.
The veteran actor was also a very sensitive lover and he wrote this when he was in love with Zeenat Aman. "My heart broken to pieces... I wanted to leave the party at once and go off somewhere alone, to just be myself, so that I could swallow the humiliation thrust on my ego”. He had good relations with Raj Kapoor. Raj was about to cast Zeenat for his next film Satyam Shivam Sundaram and for that he threw a party where he hugged and kissed Zeenat in front of Dev.
He fell in love with Kalpana Kartik on the set of ‘Taxi Driver’ in 1954. She was the lead actress of the film. They exchanged their rings in the presence of a marriage registrar and became husband and wife; however, their marriage faced a lot of ups and downs and proved unsuccessful.
Dev Anand has always been in limelight for his marriage and affairs but he claimed that Suraiya was the love of his life. He was passionately in love with her.They both worked in seven films together and madly loved each other, they tried hard to get married but because of their religious differences they decided to part ways. Suraiya’s mother was not against the marriage but her grandmother was. Before leaving each other Dev met Suraiya for the very last time. They cried and hugged each other and threw their engagement rings in the seashore. She remained a spinster throughout her life. She died on 31 Jan 2004.
His break-up with Suraiya shattered Dev so bad that he wanted to end his life but his brother Chetan Anand saved him and helped him get his career back on track. Following this there were rumours of several other affairs and some of these happened outside India. He was truly a evergreen romantic star, both in reel and real life.