Late in those evenings, when the studious students were busy with their books, my roommate and I … … occasionally two more… used to sit in the sand pit that was adjacent to the road leading to the hostels … and watching the avenue trees all around the playground swaying in the breeze … often talking, of course, not about the next day’s slip test, but more about trivia … such as about Cecil B Demille … his films … … suddenly hooked by the melody ... we would stop talking and instantly stay glued to Radio Ceylon … attentively listening to the wooing lyrics brought by the late evening’s breeze from the distantly located speakers in the pavilion… …

Jeevan ke safar mei rahi / miltey hei bichhad janey ko / Aur de jatey hei yaadein / tanhai mei tadpaney ko (In life’s journey, you meet companions only to part, who leave behind memories that haunt you in your solitude) —unconsciously wondering … so many of us … coming together from different places … different backgrounds … to stay in the campus … in the hostels together for four years … once final-year exams are over, our ways will part … may be never to meet again … what will remain is, of course, yaadein … sweet yaadein. How true! That’s what sprang to my mind when I read somewhere about Dev’s birth centenary …

Dev Anand’s yaadein will remain with us forever … whenever we think of him … his yaadein … his movies—Taxi Driver, Paying Guest, kalapani, Kalabazar, Novdo Gyara, Guide, Jewel Thief, Prem Pujari … his mannerisms, his haircut, his wonderful wardrobe—flowing scarf/muffler around the neck, striped shirts with stiff collars, jacket, pants exhibiting the socks that would sure look absurd on any other body … his romancing with beautiful heroines … roaming around girls in his careening gait with an odd drawl in his rapid fire delivery of dialogue … his unique way of nodding his head … twitched lips … singing and swaying all around the heroine in his own inimitable style … passionately romancing with eyes … Aankho hi aankhon mei ishara ho gaya … all these sweet yaadein … like a cinema reel in our mind … pushing us into the past … the past in which we all romanced in youth alongside Dev Anand and his songs …

Can we ever forget Dev Anand who sang to us Hum bekhudi mei tum ko pukarey chaley gaye…. those pathos still haunt us … even today whenever the song is heard, we get to wonder how, of all the heroes … how Dev Anand, putting aside his signature bubbling energy, crib like that subjecting every spectator … his fans … to bekhudi …

Or, when the beseeching and contrite Madhubala gives up in Kalapani and seeks pardon … Achha ji main hari chalo maan jaao na … the hurt lover in Dev teasingly expresses his masti thus … dekhi sab ki yaari mera dil jalaao na … no amount of her wooing … dekho dil na todo could lure him … so goes on he … chhodo haath chhodo …

Or, putting on the military uniform… walking in the jungle, half skip and jumping from one stone to the other … puffing cigarette … and intermittently romancing with two heroines in Hum Dono … … with such ease and concern, concern for the yaar to whom gave a promise … yet with guilt at heart.. all in shades of grey … his urbanity never failing him in cooing … Abhi na jao chhodkar / ke dil abhi bhara nahi (Do not leave me now, the heart remains unsatiated) …

Or when Dev Anand, with a blazer on the shoulders … serially nodding his head …winking his sparkling eyes … steps down the Qutub Minar, caressingly hiding Nutan’s charming face from others’ stares, who could refrain from joining him to hum … Dil ka bhanwar kare pukar / Pyar ka rag suno... or, who could forget the scene where he, stylishly leaving the Lambretta on the road and with tweaked legs, walks on Shimla roads … calling for Nutan … Tu Kahaan, Ye Bata, Is Nasheelee Raat Mein , Maane Na Mera Dil Deewaana, Haay Re, Maane Na Mera Dil Deewaana … throwing the hat into air—another hallmark of Dev, to vent out his depression or to let his elation known—and running after it to catch …

How could anyone forget his running in wilderness on the moonlit hills … ... all his limbs … why the whole body … swinging in its own harmonic disharmony … ... perhaps, intoxicated by love … … but in sync with spectators’ expectations … ..... throwing his hat all around in gay abandon and singing liltingly … O ho ho ho, khoya khoya chaand, khula aasmaan / Aankhon mein saari raat jaayegi / Tumko bhi kaise neend aayegi … or ... ... his sitting in the lower berth of the Ooty-bound train and questioning Waheeda .....teasingly ...Uparwala jaan ke bhi anjan hai, to the accompanying hissing and whistling of the steam engine amidst the night's silence ......

When Kishore pours out his heart longingly in Gaata rahe mera dil and Dev Anand lip-syncs, while Waheeda crawls behind him leaning on his shoulder, every spectator lived the rapacious … youthful … romantic moment for himself or herself … along with Dev Anand … and when he cried … Kya se kya ho gaya tere pyar me, every spectator’s quivering heart rocked in his/her throat …

Who can forget Dev’s dialogues preceding the song “Din dhal Jaaye haye raat na jaaye”: Dev: “Kohi Hai”, in his usual style.

Boy: “Kya baat hai sir, aaj aap bahaut pee rahe hain?”

Dev: “Zindagi bhi ek nasha hai dost. Jab chadhta hai to poocho mat kya aalam rehta hai… lekin jab utarta hai, in his usual rat-a-tat style

This sets the mood of the listener and prepares him for the song that follows. This hypnotic song begins with a soft alaap … Hmmmmmm … Din dhal jaaye haye, and the hallmark of the song is the way Rafi renders haye … then, like its parent raga Yaman-kalyan, the song flows to fathomless bottom to quarry viopralamba shringar, duly supported by matching lyrics: Dil ke mere paas ho itne phir bhi kitini door (You are so close to my heart and yet so far away) / Tum mujh se main dil se pareshan, dono hai majboor (You’re troubled by me and I’m troubled by my heart, both are helpless) / Aise mein kisko kaun manaaye (In such a situation, who can comfort whom) … The lyrics delivered in a very low voice by Rafi to the accompanying Burmanda’s equally soft orchestration, particularly flute … all cumulatively make the listener go along with Dev in the same mood …. The extraordinary impact of this song is certainly more due to Dev’s underplaying that elevated the depth of the simplest words chosen by Shailendra that convey the mysteries of life very effectively.

All these yaadein … fill the heart with pleasure … when droves of his memories hover around us … … pleasure gets seasoned with pain …

Well! Beet gaye din, pyarr ke … … / sapna bani … …