The First Woman In Dev Anand's Life

Ali Peter John

It was  the day when the world suffered two big  shocks. Princess Diana had died in a ghastly car accident in London and Mother Teresa died in Calcutta. Television was showing the last journey of both,Princess Dianas in  London and Mother Teresa's hearse going through the streets of Calcutta, a city she had turned into a city of joy  by her  dedication and service to the poorest of the poor, the sick and the dying for more than fifty years. Dev Anand who was basically a very shy  and sensitive man was  in  a  grieving mood, but he also had a commitment to keep, he had  to go to Poona on the invitation of one of the  powerful politician ,Suresh Kalmadi, who wanted Dev Sahab to be the chief guest at a function organized by him.

As was usual during those days, Dev Sahab called me and requested me to join him in his trip to Poona.We left  in his Fiat car with only his driver of several years, Prem who was driving .Dev Sahab continued to be in a sombre mood till we drove out of the city and then surprised me when he asked Prem to sit back and he took the steering and continued to drive (he was eighty years old at that time)and he kept driving and said, "these roads have been my friends for years and we  know each other very well ".We were slowly coming into his own self and was Dev Anand all over again. But  as we  approached the road leading to Poona, he suddenly had second thoughts about our coming to Poona. He asked me if Kalmadi would still have the function in spite of the deaths of Princess Diana  and Mother Teresa.

I said he should not have the function if he had any sense or conscience. Dev Sahab asked me, "Ali, don't you think it will be wrong for me to attend a function on this sad day ?"We reached Poona and found out that Kalmadi's function had been cancelled. But  Kalmadi was very much there at the venue and asked Dev Sahab to go with him to his house. Dev Sahab reluctantly agreed and when we reached Kalmadi's palatial house, we found hundreds of people waiting for Dev Sahab. The table was laid out with the most   delicious snacks with men  in uniform waiting to serve Dev Sahab and me.Kalmadi told Dev Sahab that the plates and all the crockery and forks and spoons were all made of pure gold. I could see Dev Sahab wincing in his chair and looking very restless. Kalmadi kept requesting Dev Sahab to stay on for the night as  his function was postponed to the next day. Dev Sahab got up from his chair, had a piece of a sandwich and told Kalmadi that he would not wait even for ten minutes more and rushed to his car, asked me to get in and we were soon on the road to Bombay....

It was nine thirty in the night when we reached and Dev Sahab asked me to go with him to his Pent House .

He normally did not have any thing heavy to eat all  day and nibbled at  dry chanas(gram)when he felt hungry, ordered for some sandwiches from a  place called Candies which was his favourite place and asked for some  tea for me .

We were talking about a song he was to  record with Rajesh Roshan the  next day when I saw tears forming in his eyes. He tried  to  wipe them away, but the tears rolled down his cheeks. I had never seen him like this. I asked him what the matter was and he  said, "Mother Teresa and her death reminded me of my mother who I  lost sixty years ago ".

I tried to ask him more about his mother and the words just came flowing from a grateful son who had forgotten that he was Dev Anand, the living legend.....

He told me his mother's face was the first face of a  woman he had seen and had got close to her and the feeling was mutual. He grew up as his mother's favourite son. He realized that his mother was very sick when he was around fifteen years old and never left her side as long as he was at home. He told me how he used to go to far away places to  buy goat's milk  which was very essential for his mother's treatment and he  even travelled from Gurudaspur, his birth place  to  Amritsar to buy medicines for her .

He used to spend many evenings sitting with his mother and trying to ask her what would happen to him if she died and it  was during one such evening that his mother held him very close and kissed his forehead and told him that he would be  a very big and famous man one day and she would not be there to  see his success .His mother died a few days later and Dev felt the seriousness and  pain of losing his mother only when a neighbour came  to  the door and in a very harsh voice said  ,"tumhaari maa mar  gayee".It was  only after Dev  heard that  harsh sentence that he  started crying and did not stop crying for the  next few days. He had lost all interest in  staying back in  his house in Gurudaspur and started dreaming of running away to Bombay, the city of dreams.

He had never known what it  was  to  be an actor. There were no theatres for miles around and the only actors whose names he had heard of and had seen pictures of  were  Ashok Kumar, Motilal and Prithiviraj Kapoor and they had left a deep impact on the young Dev Anand. He decided  that  he  too  would  be  an actor one day and  within a few years, he  had  fulfilled his mother's  prediction for  him. He had become a star, a producer  and the name behind his banner, Navketan....

That night, Dev  Sahab told me  about  two  other occasions  when he had cried. The first was  when his  affair with his leading lady of some good films Suraiyya  had ended on an unpleasant note  when the ring Suraiyya had gifted him as a symbol of their love was thrown into the sea because of the objection of Suraiyyas grand mother to their affair,her main objection being that Suraiyya was a Muslim and Dev was a Hindu. Dev said(and had even written in his diary which he kept regularly)that he tried his heart out for  a few minutes and then forgot all about it and got lost in his work...

The third time Dev Sahab cried was  because of what happened to his daughter, Devina.She was in love with Sunjay  Narang the son of the owner of the Ambassador hotel. Dev Sahab had only asked Devina if she was in love with Sunjay  and He agreed to get her married in a  grand way(the photograph you see  with me holding Dev Sahab with my hands around his neck on Facebook was taken during Devinas wedding reception).Devinas marriage ended in a  divorce within two years and when Dev Sahab heard about the divorce, he said he cried like a father who felt  grievously hurt because of what had happened to his only daughter .

When Vijay Anand (Goldie)who was Dev Sahab's favourite little brother died suddenly of a massive heart attack Dev Sahab said he would not cry. But on the chautha for Goldie, Dev Sahab who normally avoided attending funerals and chauthas started crying when the pandits started chanting their hymns and prayers for Goldie's soul, Dev Sahab started crying and cried for the next two days

Dev Sahab did not stop any fan or strangers from anywhere from meeting him in his Pent House.He had issued instructions to his security guards not to stop anyone. On one  afternoon three men came carrying a woman who they said was dying of some strange disease as a result of which she had stated weighing five hundred pounds and could not even stand and  the doctors had given up hope for her, and her  last wish was to see Dev Sahab. She even believed that if  Dev Sahab touched  her she would be healed. Dev Sahab who had not expected a scene like this had one look at the woman started  silently sobbing. When the man told Dev Sahab about her believe that he could heal her, Dev Sahab said, "nahi nahi main, main koi Dev nahi hoon, main aap logo ke jaise ek insaan hoon. Ye  thik ho  jayegi, inka thik se ilaaj karaao, main bhi inke liye duwa karunga "on the 5th day, two of the men came back and told Dev Sahab that the doctors had found some way of healing her and she would be alright in a month. They  believed that Dev Sahab had worked a miracle and he kept telling them that he was an  ordinary Dev and not the  all-powerful Dev  above.

Dev Sahab did not like going to hotels and restaurants unless it was his own party or a  press conference called by him. One evening, he said he asked me to go with him to the new revolving restaurant at the Sea Rock Hotel. We were  talking about his next film "Pyaar Ka Taraana" ,when a young men came to our table and  told Dev Sahab that there was an old woman who wanted to meet him. Dev Sahab couldn't be mean to anyone and he walked up to the table where the "old woman "was sitting and embraced her without knowing who she was. She took him by shock when she said her  name was Sheila Ramani, who was his heroine in one of his films. Dev Sahab couldn't take it and he embraced her again and said, "Sheila, what have you done to yourself ?"and he had tears in his eyes. He decided to leave the restaurant without having the tea which he very much wanted to have which very was rare and we went back to his Pent House and he kept talking about Sheila Ramani and other stars who didn't look

after  themselves....

There were many other times when I  saw Dev Sahab Talking about his mother and trying to stifle his sobs. His connection with his mother continued to be very strong till the very end....

He had hosted his birthday party at the Sun n Sand hotel where he had lived in a suite (339)for twenty years. The party held during day for the first was  only for the press. He had taken the same suite (339)and was  sitting all alone. He sent for me and I  was  puzzled. He said he wanted  to spend some time with me alone. He kept holding me and saying that he love me and even called me "my son "several times .And when he embraced me, I could feel every bone  in his body, he had grown very weak and I could feel his tears falling on my shoulders. He was  back to being the eternal Dev Anand when he went down to meet the press. Many felt that he was not the  full of life Dev Anand he always was.

He flew to London with his son Suneil. He checked into his favourite hotel. One night, he asked Suneil for a glass of water and before Suneil could bring him the glass of water, the legend and the ever green and the man who was the best tribute to life had gone away from life. The man who many were tempted to believe was eternal had passed away into eternity.

 That night when I received the news, I  broke everything in my room and I cried for the whole day and I still cry whenever I think of the glorious moments I had the good fortune and privilege of spending with him.

PS the  night when Dev Sahab first spoke to me about his mother, it was midnight and he first saw to it that his driver Prem was dropped  and then drove me himself and dropped me home. And on the way, I don't know why he asked me about my mother and when I briefly told  him about  my mother,he held me tight and said, "as long as we have our mothers with us,no one can harm us in anyway"It is a long time now  since he has gone away (really ?)but how he talked about his mother as "the first woman in my life "will be a part of me till

I have the  good fortune again to meet him and be a part of the Ananad (Joy)that he was.

SOME OTHER FAMOUS MEN WHO COULD NEVER FORGET THEIR MOTHERS

If there is one man who kept talking about his mother who he called"Ammi "till the end of his life, it was M.F.Husain,

who believed that a son who loses his mother when he is very young,is always a loner, a man who keeps looking for his mother and even sees her in different women at different times. He also believed that "a motherless son is like a rudderless boat "and keeps changing his homes because he doesn't feel comfortable anywhere, as he keeps looking for that mother who he knows he can not find again. It is perhaps this belief that made Husain live in different places and had air tickets to different cities and didn't no when to go and where to go. He once showed me six air tickets to different cities in India and asked me which city he should travel to in that one evening and finally left for Delhi with out any plan or any luggage. He kept calling his mother "the most beautiful woman I have seen in my whole life "

If there  is another man

who had  strong memories of his mother which he believed shaped his early life, it was Mohammed  Yusuf Khan, better known as Dilip Kumar.

If there was one man who missed his mother after every achievement, it was Sunil Dutt, who also like Dev Sahab cried sometimes when he talked about his"simple but powerful mother"

If there  is a man who has the highest admiration for his mother, it is Amitabh Bachchan who talks about how his mother, Teji Bachchan who came from an aristocratic family adopted her lifestyle to suit the lifestyle of her poet-husband Dr Harivanshrai Bachchan. And in keeping with his father's belief,Abhishek Bachchan holds his mother, Jaya Bachchan in awe and great respect and love.

If there is one son who misses his mother all the time it is Sanjay Dutt who was closer to his mother than his father .His mother was the kind of mother who pampered him till he got spoilt and had to be brought back on the right track by his father

If there is one son who feels the terrible lose of losing his mother when he was very young, it is Shah Rukh Khan, who keeps the memory of his mother (and also his father)alive by being the good samaritan that he is known today.

And if there is one son who believes that he is whatever he is and is doing all that he is doing to help people in distress, it is the modern day messiah Sonu Sood.

And as my  readers will know or should know,there is no woman greater than his mother who taught him all the lessons of life before he was fifteen and she was in a hurry to leave for some other world, this son is still trying to find out where that world is end where his mother is .Must I tell you who that unfortunate man is ?he is a man who has several names,but is best known as Ali Peter John.

And as I finish writing  this piece, the film Industry  which is swarmed with stories about Sushant Singh Rajput and the one striking thing about him which is creating emotional ripples, it is his love for his mother who died when he was eighteen and who he had never been able to forget and had even kept her alive in some of his scenes in films .And he literally cried on stage during a reality show in which he performed an act depicting the love of a mother and her son ,a scene which brought tears to the eyes of Madhuri Dixit who was a judge of the show and the entire audience which  gave him a standing ovation for his so true to life performance.

God's existence may be questioned, but a mother's love, care and understanding besides her all-powerful existence can never ever be questioned. Any questions ?