{"id":2047,"date":"2016-05-04T15:15:53","date_gmt":"2016-05-04T09:45:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/dev-d-eternal-soundtrack-broken-hearted\/"},"modified":"2016-05-04T15:15:53","modified_gmt":"2016-05-04T09:45:53","slug":"dev-d-eternal-soundtrack-broken-hearted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=2047","title":{"rendered":"Dev.D: The Eternal Soundtrack for the Broken-Hearted"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I<\/span><\/p>f you\u2019ve ever been pissed drunk and sobbed thereafter like a hopeless, hapless romantic, chances are you\u2019ve been tripping on \u201cEmotional Atyachaar\u201d while trying to have a meaningful conversation with schezwan chakli.<\/span>\n\nDevdas has been told and retold to us for 90 years now because all of us identify \u2013 at least at some stage in our lives \u2013 with the <\/span>nihilism<\/span><\/a> that Dev encapsulates. It is very much an antithesis to the \u201cmain udna chahta hun, girna chahta hun\u201d conundrum that dominates the Bunny-type boy (read <\/span>Ranbir Kapoor<\/span><\/a>), where one is out to \u201cfind their true self\u201d with a lollipop of idealism between their lips. <\/span>\n\nI was barely 15 when <\/span>Dev.D<\/span><\/i> released, a time when my hormones were raging like a Dylan Thomas poem, not letting anything go gently into the good night, but even at that age I could fathom that you don\u2019t just sit back and watch an Anurag Kashyap film. You feel it. You feel the chest congestion and desperation in a <\/span>No Smoking<\/span><\/i> and the brutal violence of a <\/span>Gulaal<\/span><\/i> while with<\/span> Dev.D<\/span><\/i> you can smell the mustard fields, feel the alcohol gushing down your throat, and let the soundscape take you into the character\u2019s inner recesses where not a lot is said, but silence is experienced by the music that sets the scene. <\/span>\n\nThe reason why the music in <\/span>Dev.D<\/span><\/i> has become the album for those broken by love, is because Kashyap demonstrated, through his music alone, that his adaptation is the story of three lives that intermingle, and it is as much Paro and Chanda\u2019s story as it is Dev\u2019s. In Sanjay Leela Bhansali\u2019s <\/span>Devdas<\/span><\/i>, the songs speak of Dev and how others relate to him. In <\/span>Dev.D<\/span><\/i>, Kashyap challenges that very notion as soon as he decides to mount the narrative on three characters rather than just the one and uses the music to establish the overall arcs of each character. <\/span>\n

The chords of a very unnatural long-distance romance are struck the moment Dev asks her to send him nudes.<\/blockquote>\nLeni\u2019s (later Chanda) story is set in the rich public school world of Delhi, where the exuberance of school romance is captured in the free-flowing verses of \u201cYahi Meri Zindagi\u201d. As her story shifts rather drastically and she\u2019s alienated by her family, friends, and the world itself, her isolation is captured by \u201cAankh Micholi\u201d which sums up the character\u2019s motivations precisely and puts you in her very uncomfortable shoes. Leni\u2019s transformation into a prostitute by night and a college girl by day is complete when she adopts the name \u201cChanda\u201d after watching <\/span>Madhuri<\/span><\/a> as Chandramukhi from <\/span>Devdas<\/span><\/i>. The meta reference aside, Amit Trivedi, Amitabh Bhattacharya, and Anurag Kashyap constantly try and remind you that their story is a deeper insight into Chanda, who ends up as an emancipated and independent character by the time the film culminates, unlike the Chandramukhi of <\/span>Devdas<\/span><\/i>.<\/span>\n\nThe na\u00efve black polish of Chanda\u2019s canvas shoes changes to Paro\u2019s jooti almost effortlessly. The chords of a very unnatural long-distance romance are struck the moment Dev asks her to send him nudes. It speaks volumes of their relationship, as Paro decides to go all the way to Chandigarh to develop those photos. \u201cDhol Yaara Dhol\u201d becomes the rustic flavour of romance, as Paro awaits her knight in shining armour, who turns out to be a lot less. The disillusionment after Dev arrives on the scene \u2013 because of inflated male egos, rumours, and the like \u2013 blends into \u201cMahi Menu\u201d, the polar opposite of the track before, as it spits in the face of romance and romanticises the pang of separation more than the act of love itself. <\/span>\n\nDev\u2019s character trajectory, even though heavily influenced by the two women, also makes you experience the disillusionment that entraps most of his world: the dim-lit alleys of Paharganj where hash, haramis, and hippies flow like My Bar\u2019s cheap wine. The music pivots to Dev\u2019s self-pity and self-harm as it leads him onto a path of destruction which culminates in a deadly accident. While \u201cPardesi\u201d speaks of alienation and looks at your own life like an outsider, \u201cNayan Tarse\u201d is an ode to addiction, much like <\/span>Devdas<\/span><\/i> itself \u2013 it is these layers of addiction that bring the film together. Addiction to a past, to drugs and debauchery and to relationships that are forged over the coffins of other stories. \u201cSaali Khushi\u201d again is a reminder of how one tries to pinch himself to feel the pain one thinks one must feel to eventually escape the sorrow but all it achieves is a vertigo-inducing spiral down more self-pity and destruction. <\/span>\n\nIt\u2019s a soundtrack that\u2019s difficult to forget, even a decade after it released. It comes alive in house parties, at the fag-end of binge-drinking sessions when no one wants to take on the responsibility of DJ\u2019ing, when only \u201cPayaliyaa\u201d will hit the spot. <\/span>\n\nAs \u201cEmotional Attyachaar\u201d became the break-up anthem of the last decade, Kashyap ensured that as viewers we felt exactly what Dev felt without empathising with him. Alcohol abuse, drugs, and voyeurism are traits that show how a man who we\u2019d come to see as a rebellious hero in the first few minutes of the film, turns out to be an egomaniac turned down by a stoic Paro and rescued by Chanda. We might feel sorry for Dev but are never ready to hero-worship him. There is a fine balance that Kashyap and his co-writer Vikramaditya Motwane maintain when we see Dev at his worst. <\/span>\n\nThrough the soundscape, the handheld camera, and poignancy of form, Kashyap delivers a love story which is an aberration in the growing list of Devdas adaptations over the years. It is a comment on the inherent fragility of the male ego seen through the prism of a romance. The women are innately stronger characters and choose to either denounce or redeem the man, the love of their lives. Even men apart from Dev are seen in this light. Be it the father who shoots himself because his daughter\u2019s MMS clip or Dev\u2019s father who constantly rejects any threat to his status as the patriarch. <\/span>\n\nEventually, what Kashyap is trying to say by making his own dent in the Devdas universe is that we are all self-loathing losers pinching ourselves into bleeding so that in our self-induced intoxication, we can mistake the blood for schezuan chutney and dip our sorrows in it with \u201cSaali Khushi\u201d playing in the background. More importantly, he tells us, that even after the worst, all that remains… is hope.<\/span>\n\n\u00a0\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s been 10 years since Anurag Kashyap’s Dev D came out, and what continues to live on, is its gorgeous soundtrack. The film demonstrated, through the music alone, that it is as much Paro and Chanda\u2019s story as it is Dev\u2019s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133,"featured_media":2048,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3114],"tags":[4133,1287,1834,4134,4135,4136],"class_list":["post-2047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bollywood","tag-abhey-deol","tag-anurag-kashyap","tag-dev-d","tag-emotional-atyachar","tag-kalki-koelchin","tag-mahi-gill"],"yoast_head":"\nDev.D: The Eternal Soundtrack for the Broken-Hearted<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It's been 10 years since Anurag Kashyap's Dev D came out, and what continues to live on, is its gorgeous soundtrack. 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