DEV SAHAB APNE KHAAYAL ANGREZI MEIN LIKH KAR APNE LEKHAKON KO AUR GEETKAARON KO DETE THE, AUR WOH USSE HINDI YA URDU ME ANUVAAD KARTE THE..... BY ALI PETER JOHN

He always had a very strong fascination for the English language. ( He done his B A in English literature ) but he knew that that he has to know Hindi and Urdu if he had to make it in Hindi films - Ali Peter John

The first few films and till " Tere Ghar Ke Saamne" , "Guide" and "Tere Mere Sapne", all made under his banner, Navketan , he had his younger brother Vijay Anand to write and direct his films and what Vijay Anand wrote was the work of genius which is a fact accepted even today .

But when Dev Anand took to directing his own film , he also took charge of writing the scripts and the lyrics. He used to think about his scripts in hindi and then write it down in English in own hand writings. He wrote as speedily as he thought in English, which he said he couldn't do in Hindi.

It was only after he had completed writing the whole script with the songs that he called writers and poets to his Pent House and told them what he wanted and told them that they could only change the language and not the content.

And all the writers and especially the lyricists only did a literal translation of what he wrote. The only poet he couldn't make ask to follow his direction was Sahir Ludhiyanvi, who he had given his first big break in "Baazi" which made Sahir a star among lyricist till the end of his life.

Among the other lyricist who wrote according to Dev's instructions were Amit Khanna , Neeraj, Anjaan, M. G Hashmat and even Anand Bakshi.

He used to write all that he wrote in huge log books with felt pens of different colours

Even when he dicided to write his autobiography "Romancing With Love" , he wrote one thousand pages in English and in his own hand writing and completed writing the first draft of the book in ten days.

The publishers, Dev Sahab told me had printed only half the book and had promised him to publish the other half at some other time.

The book was a best seller, Dev Sahab went to London for some treatment and died in his hotel suite after having just a glass of water handled to him by his son Suneil Anand.

And there are any number of questions about Dev Sahab left unanswered and one of them is about what happened to the autobiography which was left half complete and the other question is about what happened to all the thousands of books in his Pent House and all the scripts he had written in English for films to be made by him in the future , a future that was not to come for him .