“Did you hear the news?” my brother called me from Bangalore on my mobile as I was on my early morning walk in the neighbourhood park last Sunday. “No, what is it?” I quizzed, slowing down my steps. “See, I have to tell a newsman that Dev Anand, your hero, is dead.” The words stopped me short.

Dev Anand, a long-time favourite of my generation, was the topic of a lively discussion in our Yahoo group called ‘Thuthukudians', named after the port town of Thuthukudi, a little more than a year ago, after the publication of my interview with the veteran actor in Delhi. A few more group members called me to offer their condolences as if I had lost someone near and dear. In a sense, I guess it was true.

During my school and college days, my hero remained too far, only to be watched on the big screen in the pre-television period of the 50s and 60s. Those were the days when Black & White cinema ruled and Dev Anand was an endearing phantom, who was not to be seen physically.

Come early 1970s, I was able to catch the “phantom” in flesh and blood. My first meeting with Dev Anand was sometime in 1973, as a reporter with a well-known film weekly in Bombay. Later on, I again ran into him at a few film festivals in Delhi and at the Dada Saheb Phalke award function in 2002. My last meeting with him was on October 23, 2010.

I was among the scores of journalists and TV crew waiting for him. Dev Anand was late, the delay being caused by thronging fans wherever he went. Finally, he reached the hotel. The lift doors opened and there was the spry figure of the forever agile actor. “I am on a high,” exclaimed Dev Anand, as he walked with his trademark falling gait to the venue, the Roof Top of the Taj Mahal Hotel, attired in a casual jacket and a shawl thrown across his shoulder carelessly for effect. He wasn't alluding to the height of the venue, nor to intoxication. The venerable actor was “high” on his lifetime passion — cinema.

PASSION FOR CINEMA

After answering questions for 30 minutes, Dev Anand gave one-to-one interviews to the journalists who sought them. At 87, the actor talked to journalists, both from the print media and TV, for approximately 10 minutes each. He held forth for four hours on his seven-decade career in Bollywood that began as early as 1946.

The rest of the mediapersons had started on their lunch even as the actor was busy with his interviews. From the moment he entered the venue at half past noon, till his assistant reminded him three hours later that he should have “a little to eat”, Dev Anand had only a glass of water. The octogenarian's energy was enthusing. The diet that kept him going was again his love for the cinema.

TV journalists, all in their 20s, were awestruck as they interviewed the actor one after another. And when my turn finally came, I was a little exhausted by the long listening. But Dev Anand was as fresh as the morning dew and answered my questions with ease. “How do you manage to talk this long without getting tired?” To my question, his reply was “I will die if I stop talking.”

Dev Anand may be dead. But the actor will continue to ‘talk' through his films.

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