DevD vs Devdas: Anurag Kashyap’s adaptation respected Paro and Chandramukhi in a way that Sanjay Leela Bhansali completely missed

Generations of filmmakers in India have been fascinated with the tragic story of Devdas. Written by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay in 1917, the story of a failed lover who drowns his sorrows in alcohol and blames his love story with Paro for his downward spiral, has had three fairly popular interpretations in Hindi cinema by Bimal Roy, Bhansali and Anurag Kashyap. The three films are set in different eras, star some of the most popular actors of their time and are tonally different from each other yet what remains consistent in them is their interpretation of the titular character. Across the three films, Dev is a self-destructive, selfish man who prefers to ignore his problems rather than dealing with them. But the three filmmakers choose to interpret their female characters differently and that’s what makes these adaptations fascinating.

The Paro in Bhansali and Roy’s world is a proud woman who lets go of Dev when he starts berating her but even after she gets married, her love for Dev never allows her to move on completely. Bhansali’s Paro, played by Aishwarya Rai, walks around with a diya in her palace which she sees as a symbol of her love. He dies at the door of Paro’s house in both films, as if to say that they could not have a life together but at least he found some peace in death for she was close by. But that’s where Kashyap interprets his Paro differently. Mahie Gill, who was a revelation as Paro here, leaves Dev with the same pride that her predecessors had but when Dev comes back, she makes it clear that they are done. There’s a sense of longing in her eyes but that disappears after her last encounter as she walks away from him. Dev is still the same self-involved man who just can’t love anyone else and Mahie’s Paro can see that this trait can swallow anyone who comes in his orbit. This awareness on her part does not diminish the love that she once had for him but makes her the woman who knows when to save herself from his mess.

Mahie Gill in Anurag Kashyap’s Dev.D.

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Anurag’s Dev.D also chooses to end the film in a rather unorthodox way when he allows his Dev to live and gives him another chance at life. Unlike the other two films, here, Dev finds himself at rock bottom and after a near-death experience, he tries to get his act together. Towards the end of the film, he asks for Chandramukhi’s (Kalki Koechlin) help and surrenders. Unlike his predecessors, Abhay’s Dev comes back to his senses just before he loses everything and knows that he is not in a position to handle it all by himself. Chandramukhi, who has gotten the shorter end of the stick in most of the other interpretations, gets her due here and has a fresh start with Dev. In Bhansali’s version, Madhuri Dixit’s Chandramukhi is the sacrificing woman who is almost compared to Krishna’s Meera. She loves selflessly but Dev is far too involved in Paro to even notice this. But here, her love is acknowledged even when it is not reciprocated. And when he ultimately reciprocates, Dev acknowledges that his love for Paro was perhaps an illusion. Anurag’s choices here presented a rather novel take on the story of the man who has long been glorified for drinking himself to death.

In Bhansli’s film, Paro and Chandramukhi are treated with the best of clothes but their life revolves around that one man in their life. They both are ready to put up with his bad attitude and continue to make sacrifices until the end. But Anurag made it a point to tell us that both Paro and Chandramukhi could be without Dev and still live full lives.

Of course, Anurag’s style of filmmaking is vastly different from Sanjay Leela Bhansali but it is his point of view that sets his Devdas apart. There is a sense of romanticisation when you see Abhay’s Dev going through his many benders but Anurag gives his protagonist some of the biggest hurdles to cross. Abhay’s Dev is charged with seven murders but that doesn’t shake his soul. Until he faces death up close, he doesn’t snap into reality, which completely fits in with his selfish persona.

Abhay Deol and Kalki Koechlin in Anurag Kashyap’s Dev.D.

Abhay, who received the credit for coming up with the concept of the film, said it was of utter importance to him that the title character gets called out for his misogyny and the women in the story get their due. “I had read the book and I could see that the character was a chauvinist, a misogynist, entitled, and arrogant. Yet he had been romanticized for decades! The women on the other hand were strong and had integrity, but there was still that expectation for them to love their man no matter what. I wanted to change that. I wanted to empower them, shed the image of the ‘good, devoted, woman’. It was time to make them independent, not defined by the man they love, or by men in general. Which is why Paro calls out Dev’s faults and puts him in his place,” he shared in an earlier Instagram post.

At a time when filmmakers like Sandeep Reddy Vanga have thrown morality out of the window with films like Animal, watching Anurag’s Dev.D gives you a sense that a character’s immoral choices do not necessarily dictate a filmmaker’s point of view. Dev could have easily been the hyper-macho man who could claim that he was living on his terms, and would continue to berate the women around him and given the kind of men we are seeing in our movies now, who knows, maybe the next Devdas would be a celebration of his toxic attitude.