Dev Anand| “Sau Saal Pehle—Mujhe Tumse Pyaar thha—Aaj bhi hai–Aur Kal bhi Rahega “ !!

These are the wonderful lyrics of the evergreen romantic duet-song from the ‘Dev Anand starrer movie  ‘Jab Pyaar Kisi Sey Hota Hai’ (1961) directed by ‘showman’ Nasir Husain.

Creative genius Dev Anand’s actor-director nephew Ketan Anand (son of legendary film-maker Chetan Anand) will be making a special series on Dev Anand to mark his 100 birth anniversary, according to news-media reports. The dynamic, creative Ketan Anand has just revealed his ambitious plans that he would be producing a six- episode series to mark  his legendary uncle Dev-saab’s 100 birth anniversary later this year on September 26th 2023…

Apparently, Ketan Anand got this brilliant brainwave, two years ago,  while he was exceptionally attending one of those celebratory (Dev-saab’s 98th-anniversary event) memorial functions along with ‘late’ popular veteran film-journalist Ali Peter John ( of ‘Mayapuri and bolly.com) who had invited him. There was this Dev Anand’s Fans’ Club here formed by numerous qualified professionals. ( doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc).  At Dev-saab’s anniversary celebration, Ketan was highly impressed when these talented fans performed Dev Anand’s songs and enacted scenes with such passion…That’s when Ketan and Ali decided that decided that they must do something for the 100th anniversary which will fall this year in September 2023. Unfortunately, Ali Peter John passed away in June 2022, but Ketan is determined that he will continue to do all the possible efforts, to produce his six-episode tribute series dedicated to Dev-saab.

According to Ketan, besides fond memories, images and sentimental tributes, the Dev Anand centenary episodes will incorporate interesting conversations with cross sections of different categories of NRIs and Pan-India people. speaking about ‘six decades’ of Dev Anand’s cinematic legacy. Each decade will recreated virtually and we will have new people playing Dev Anand’s songs. Because as all his fans know, that Dev Anand is synonymous with dozens of his evergreen charbuster songs. Its an emotional tribute from Ketan and his family is behind him

Dev Anand’s nephew actor-director Shekhar Kapoor has as come on board and even Ketn’s friend Kabir Bedi and his nephew Purab Kohli have also come on board. Ketan will be making diligent efforts to get “audio-visual bytes”  ardent fans and those closely associated with Dev-saab at various junctures of his glorious career. There are plans to have live tribute sessions so that we have a cross-section of the whole movie industry participating.. According to Ketan, the theme will run as,” Zamaana badalta gaya,  Lekin Dev Anand chaltaa gaya,. Zindagi Ka saath nibhaata chala gaya,” !

As is known, ‘ageless’ debonair Dev-saab maintained his ‘romantic-swag’ image throughout this six decades. Writing his beautiful candid autobiography-book  with the title Romancing With Life he shared his six-decades with all his passionate fans and retro-cinema-lovers.  are wl capitals. Ketan praises his uncle Dev-saab by saying that the ‘Prem Pujari’  was always a inspiring cult-figure, a style-icon and an inspiring original trend-setter of cinema and film-music,

The talented Suneil Anand  (Dev Anand’s actor-director son) will also be a part of the project and Ketan proposes to get him to do the last episode. Where Suniel talks about his father Dev-saab during the years when his father was writing his autobiography-book  and taking the Navketan  legacy forward.  As part of the six-episodes, the enterprising Ketan also has plans to get Zeenat Aman ( with whom he was also a co-star-actor in Hare Rama Hare Krishna together) and iconic stars like Rajinikanth, Salman Khan, Mithun Chakraborty, Jackie Shroff , Govinda,  and Aamir Khan and also writers, singers and music-directors who have had  professional and sentimental connections with Dev-saab over the years..

After completing these six episodes, Ketan Aand also proposes to announce a war-centric yet touching emotional film ‘Haqeeqat-2’ . It may be recalled that Ketan’s legendary father Chetan Anand had made this patriotic Indo-Chinese landmark musical-war-action-drama ‘Haqeeqat (1964)..  Later on,  Ketan proposes to also make a personal film called the ’Magic Mantra in which his hero is only nine years old.

Actor-director Ketan Anand ( who directed movies like ‘Toote Khilone’ and ‘Shart’ in the past) shares that he studied cinema with his genius father ( Chetan Anand)  but studied the craft of film-making from yet another genius ‘uncle’ Vijay Anand (Goldie-saab)

As an eminent senior film-journalist, it was my honor and privilege that I (Chaitanya Padukone) personally knew and met ‘ageless’ Dev Anand-saab numerous times and interviewed him so many times at filmy parties, on the phone and even song recordings and of course on his birthdays (Sept 26^th)  at his penthouse at Pali Hill.  We shared a warm rapport-bonding. There is so much that I learnt in a span of over 30 years from hyper-active Dev-saab in terms of positive optimism and innovative original creativity…