In retrospect, it seems to be quite an irony that Ash was working.
on Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Devdas while her relationship with Salman Khan was
redefining chaos with each passing day. Bhansali had decided to make a film
based on Devdas, the tragic novel written by the Bengali writer Sarat Chandra
Chatterjee way back in 1917 that charms countless filmmakers even today. First
made in Bengali by Naresh Mitra as a silent film way back in 1928, the film
acquired huge popularity in the 1936 Hindi version directed by Pramathesh
Chandra Barua that had K L Saigal playing the hero.
Nineteen years later, the legendary Bimal Roy who had worked
with Barua as the cameraman decided to make this film with Dilip Kumar in the
role of the protagonist who drinks himself to death. Alongside these famous
interpretations were countless other films that had been based on this tragic
novel, and a discussion on which should constitute the content of a separate
book altogether:
Decades later, Bhansali who had given Ash her first major
hit with HDDCS was about to start his version of the film. (Some trivia for the
quiz buffs here. The veteran filmmaker Shakti Samanta also decided to make
Devdas in Bengali around the same time with the actor Biswajeet's son Prosenjit
playing the main lead, which explains the popularity of the novel we suppose).
But Bhansali's approach was different from any other filmmaker who had attempted
to make Devdas before.
For good or for bad, but keen on manifesting his style of
visually spectacular filmmaking, the narrative as conceptualised by Bhansali
was to 'look' grander than. ever before. The budget for the film was
astronomical, and the original story was to be modified in keeping with the
filmmaker's individualistic style of presentation. Shah Rukh Khan was signed to
play the title role, Ash was to step into the shoes of Parvati or Paro, the
woman whose love Devdas loses because of which he drinks himself to death.
Madhuri Dixit was to play Chandramukhi, the courtesan who attempts to provide
solace to the perennially inebriated lover and falls for him.
For the character of Parvati or Paro, Bhansali had screentested
a few actresses, among them Kareena Kapoor who was made to test in complete
costumes. But she was dropped amidst a lot of controversy, with Kareena claiming
that she had been promised the role and also been given.
the signing amount. In an interview, Bhansali said that '
Kareena had indeed come to him for the role. 'But he had told her that he
needed to see what she was capable of and, therefore, wished to do a photo
shoot with the right costumes. Kareena's mum Babita was present at the shoot,
so was her elder sister Karisma.
Bhansali denied having made any commitment, and said that
after going through the photographs he had told Kareena that Ash was the perfect
choice for the role because she had the sort of looks he was looking for. An
enraged Kareena, he claimed, had even gone to the extent of saying that he did
not know the art of filmmaking. When the director met Kareena later, he told
her that he would cast her if he found a role that was suitable for her. Till
then, he would work on mastering the craft of filmmaking.
Strong exchange of verbal artillery indeed. But then, the
stakes were high. Devdas was being made once again, and it was certain that Bhansali's
version would get a lot of publicity Budget-wise, this was the most expensive
project of financier Bharatbhai Shah, and each of the stars signed for the film
had a point to prove as far as their acting abilities were concerned. It was a
challenge every star worth his or her salt would have loved to accept.
With Kareena left out in the cold, Ash was signed to do a
role that had been immortalised by Suchitra Sen in Roy's 1955 version. When
that happened, she had neither seen the earlier films nor read the novel. All
she had was an idea of who Devdas was since the protagonist, as she said in an
interview to redlff.com, was the synonym for a heartbroken lover just as Romeo
would be for the English speaking peoples.
She further added: "It was when Sanjay narrated the
script to me almost two years ago, that I really heard the story for the first
time. I then made a conscious effort not to see the earlier films - I wanted to
go in to this project with no mental frame of reference whatsoever, I wanted my
Paro to be Sanjay's interpretation of the character and to do that, I needed to
stay free of any conceptions based on what previous actresses had done with the
role. After the film was about 80% complete, and when we were heading into the
climactic portions, Sanjay would occasionally have someone read out to me
relevant bits from the book, to help me get into Paro's head ahead of the
intense sequences, and that helped a lot."
That Ash was really charged up about the project itself
could be sensed through an interview she gave to TeIeLIFE "Everything
about the film was pretty inspired: its story, script and the role itself.
Sanjay and me have a great working relationship, it happened before HDDCS also.
It took less effort to interpret the character of Paro. I absolutely enjoyed
portraying her."
Devdas was Bhansali's dream idea, and he spared no effort to
ensure that the film looked exactly the way he wanted it to. Together with
designer Neeta Lulla whose association with Ash began during the days of jeans
in which she had made some really exotic outfits for her, Bhansali went down to
Kolkata and brought around 600 sarees. In the first half, Lulla stuck to
dressing up Paro in simple cottons and Dhakai cottons. Later, when the film
showed a married Paro, the yardage of the sarees was increased from the usual
six meters to a minimum of eight to nine meters. The preparatory exercises had
indeed been most meticulously delineated. No stone had been left unturned.
Bhansali wanted his picturesque vision to come true in the most lavish manner
possible.
Not that the shooting of the film was free from problems. In
fact, there were many obstacles during its making before the film was finally
released on July 12, 2002. The sets caught fire, the film's financier
Bharatbhai Shah was arrested and Bhansali had problems with music composer
Ismail Darbar. But he carried on, and eventually ended up completing the film
that was really close to his heart. What motivated him to deliver the magnum
opus? "It is not just an interpretation of a novel but catharsis for me. I
have felt these things time and again. I have made Devdas to give me a little
peace," said he in an interview on BBCs Face to Face with Karan Thapar. In
another interview to the PTI, he said that it the film was "the story of
my father (Navin Bhansali) and mother (Leela Bhansali). The starting point is
when my father died of cirrhosis in the hospital."
Why Bhansali was so motivated had been finally revealed.
However the film, while being selected to be an entry for screening in the
out-of-competition section at the Grand Theatre Lumiere at the Cannes film
festival in 2002, got mixed responses within India. Several sections of the
media were dissatisfied with the way Bhansali had treated the subject, although
when it came to Ash, all unequivocally agreed that hers was a performance worth
writing home about. As the reviewer in indya.com
noted: "The performances in the film are impressive but Aishwarya Rai
towers above the rest. In her portrayal of the feminine and graceful Paro and
in her transformation... she is riveting."
Once again, Bhansali had been able to set forth the finer nuances
of Ash, the actress, in front of the film-viewing masses. With this film in
which she had none other than Madhuri Dixit to contend with, Ash proved
conclusively that she was a director's actress in which there was a lot of
latent talent still waiting to be tapped. As she herself told TeleLIFE "If
I see inspiration and conviction in the director then it becomes easy to
interpret the character I am supposed to play, because the films, the
characters, are directors' babies! So an actor essays on the screen what the
director has conceived. I think it is the director's conviction which inspires
me as an actress."
