Dev Anand Had Plans To Make Three More Films

Ali Peter John

He was always in a hurry to finish one project and before he could finish one,he had three more ideas in his mind .

He could run up the staircase of his office in Khira Nagar in Santacruz when he was eighty two .He could cross wooden bridges without any fear while his stars and technicians struggled .He could climb hills in Mahabaleshwar which was his favourite resort and he had a permanent room in an old Parsi hotel called The Fredricks ,which was named after him and was not given out to anyone else .He did the impossible when he went up twenty six storeys at the Express Towers to shoot just one scene with Aamir Khan playing cricket at the Brabourne Stadium when he was in his eighties.He was shooting for a film and was simultaneously writting his autobiography ,"Romancing Life"which he wrote in his own handwriting and completed in less than two months.

He was facing financial problems during the last twelve years of his life, but he never gave up and said "Money will come to Dev because Dev has never cheated anyone and has put all that he has earned back into the films he has made and the most modern equipment he has bought for his studio"

His speed slowed down after his son Suneil struck a deal with a builder and Dev's dream studio,pent house which was his own office and his recording studio were all gone for a staggering sum of two hundred and eighty three crore and the legendary icon was pushed into a small apartment in a building called "Ridhi"where he sat every afternoon and kept looking very sad and lost .

The builder had promised him two entire floors in the building that was to come up where his bungalow -cum-office was, but the builder took his own time  to complete the structure  and the more the time the builder took, the more frustrated Dev got ,till he gave up hope.

He was still full of ideas and wanted to make three films of which he had already written the scripts.The first was to be a film based on the assainaton of King Mahendra of Nepal and his family (The King was a personal friend and had visited Dev in his office a week before the assassinaton and was  the guiding force  for Dev  to shoot his film ,"Hare Rama, Hare Krishna "all over Nepal )

The other film he had written the script for was based on the life and love of the world renowned sitarist ,Pandit Ravi Shankar. And he was also planning to make a war film revolving round the life of Field Marshal Sam Maneckshaw .

But, his life took a bitter turn after his studio was sold and he fell seriously sick for the first time in his life , but never let anyone know . Suneil flew him to London.The father and son checked into Dev's favourite hotel in London , The  Dorchester .

The same night Dev asked Suneil for a  glass of water and according to Suneil ,when he bought the glass to his father, the legend had gone away with all his dreams unfulfilled.

The building is now ready and the builder has been kind enough to name it 42-Anand,which was Dev's address for four decades.

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