Dev Anand's death: The show never stopped... The dud years

Age may not have dimmed Dev Anand’s passion for films. However, the actordirector never realised that he was not in sync with fast-changing times, said a noted critic. “Devsaab lost it after Hare Rama Hare Krishna and Des Pardes. Yet, he went on making film after film which unfailingly bombed at the box-office,” the critic pointed out. “It was painful to sit through his latter-day films.”

According to experts, Anand’s downhill trundle began after he took over as director from his brother, well-known film-maker Vijay Anand. The two parted ways after Tere Mere Sapne, it is said. Shailendra was dead, S D Burman died soon after and Navketan began to flounder. “I had some serious differences with Dev saab during the making of Tere Mere Sapne. We decided to call it quits,” Vijay Anand said an interviewer years ago.

Dev Anand often said he took on the director’s mantle as he was eager to tackle “contemporary themes”. Prem Pujari, his directorial debut, spoke about pacifism with a bit of China’s Cultural Revolution added to the script.

It flopped. His next, Hare Rama Hare Krishna, which tackled the theme of drugs and breakdown of Indian family values, was a runaway hit, with the 19-year old freshly crowned Miss Asia Zeenat Aman and Asha Bhosle’s iconic Dum maro dum capturing the nation’s imagination.

Des Pardes brought some more success. However, Banarasi Babu, Swami Dada, Anand Versus Anand, Sau Karod, Love In Times Square and Chargesheet, Navketan’s 2011 venture, were damp squibs at the box-office .

“I don’t want to talk about my past. I don’t like resting on my laurels. I take life as it comes,” he once told an interviewer . “I will make films. That’s all I can do.”