DEV ANAND SWEPT ME OFF MY FEET WHEN I WAS SEVENTEEN

Ali Peter John

I don't mind or I don't even care about what people will say when I say that I fell in love with the magic of Dev Anand when I was just out of school . I have continued loving Dev Anand for the last forty years and I know , sorry ,I am sure that my love for Dev Sahab will never diminish , fade away or die......

I was just out of school and had joined a college in Sion in Bombay I was always short of money and depended on economic freeships and scholarships .It was in the very third month of my first year in college when I had received a scholarship of hundred and seventy five rupees.I thought of the best way of spending the money and decided to buy a cycle which would help me travel to college , which otherwise took me one hour of walking and two hours of traveling by bus .

I bought a brand new Hercules cycle for which I had to pay exactly the amount I had received as my first major scholarship .I was a hero in my village when I drove the new cycle home .

I was in a state of excitement all through the afternoon , evening and the night.I had planned to take the cycle to church the next morning to ask god to bless it and me .

There was a film called "Jab Pyaar
Kisise Hota Hai"to be shown at the Sangam cinema which came between my home and the church .I had one rupee in my pocket and that was the price of a ticket to see the film at Sangam which was then the only theatre in Bombay which boasted of an elevator , besides being air-conditioned . The film had Dev Anand and Asha Parekh in leading roles.I had become a fan of Asha Parekh after I had first seen her in a film called "Dil Deke Dekho" and then in "Ziddi". It was going to be the opening of a long inning I was destined to play with almost all the films of Dev Anand......

I parked my brand new cycle outside the church and went in to pray.I came back after thirty minutes only to see that my cycle had vanished.I tried looking for it and asked a few holy people if they had seen my dear new cycle and they all looked at me as if I was the thief .I finally threw up my hands and told myself "what is gone will not come back"and I rushed to the Sangam cinema and bought a ticket and settled down in a seat and for the next three hours I was lost in the world of Dev Anand (and Asha Parekh) and the mind-blowing songs . And not for a moment did I think about my lost cycle.

I reached home walking and my friends asked me where my new cycle was and I told them ,"cycle hawa ho gayee". They were in no mood for my flippant attitude to my what they called "a tragedy". Soon , the entire village came to know about my great "loss "and put pressure on me to make a complaint at the nearest police station.I went alone even though I didn't want to go .I went to the police officer on duty and timidly told him ,"sahab , meri cycle chori ho gayi"and before I could say anything more , the police officer called a constable and told him in Marathi"yaala aat gya "(take this fellow inside). The constable led me to a cell where I saw a large wooden plank with a heavy wooden baton next to it.

I saw danger and burst into English and told the officer the same thing in English and the officer on duty said ,"arre tereko English aati hai,pehle bolne ka tha na " .
I didn't want to wait there for a moment more and I ran for my life .I had vowed never to go anywhere near a police station and I succeeded for the next forty years or more till a nasty cheater of a woman thought she would get me into trouble and failed ......I never thought about the cycle again , but I knew I was drunk on the dazzling magic of Dev Anand...

Watching Dev Anand in that film "Jab Pyaar Kisise Hota Hai"got me addicted to Dev Anand and I Kept watching every film with him as the hero,I saw all his old black and white films at matine shows in theatres all over the city mostly traveling by trains without a ticket.

My addiction reached a new high when I saw Dev Anand in films like "Guide", "Jewel Thief", "Johny Mera Naam", "Tere Mere Sapne"and" Hare Rama Hare Krishna".

I kept watching all his new films till I joined "Screen" in 1973 and I then saw my greatest dream come true when I met my dream hero Dev Anand face to face and as I always say that began my affair with the ever green, never aging and the never say die Dev Eternal Anand as my friend and a fellow admirer of Dev Anand,Mr.Trinetra Bajpai describes him in what I think is the ultimate book on a phenomenon called Dev Anand that will last till time lasts