Keeping up with the times and sidestepping hurdles

Time, actually its passage, is not something one ponders over on your usual, average day. There is no time for those sorts of things. And believe me, I was going to write about something completely different when I sat down in front of my blank computer screen to write this column for the year just gone by.

But the words wouldn't come. Heralding the new year with some kind of summing up of the good, the bad, and the ugly just didn't ring right.

Besides, in Mumbai for work and on the way home after visiting a sick friend in a hospital in the suburbs, I had impulsively stopped by Dev Anand's temporary office in Khar to say hello. He was in, and at work, with his son Suneil and a distributor.

You could easily miss seeing the frail actor sitting behind his desk piled high with files and posters of the freshly reincarnated version of his 1961 classic film Hum Dono with Nanda and Sadhana: the last black and white film from the actor-director-producer’s Navketan Films has been “colourised” and enhanced with Dolby digital and surround sound.

But when Dev Anand springs up and begins to talk about the resurrected Hum Dono and his latest film, Chargesheet, in which he stars along with Naseeruddin Shah and Jackie Shroff, most of his 87 years just seem to fall off. The robustness of this live performance is impressive: it’s almost as if the Peter Pan of the Indian screen had removed the hands of the universal clock and silenced its ticking. At least, in his mind.

As he talks animatedly about the two films (both will be released soon) the image of the young Dev Anand with his sparkling eyes, trademark puff and endearing smile of the “colourised” Hum Dono seems to be superimposed on this pale, fragile face in front of me. The spell lasts for a brief moment.

It makes me think about time: do we lose a year as the old gives way to the new? Or do we gain a year? Is each New Year a rebirth? Do we tame time by continuing to do what we do — as Mr Anand seems to be doing? Perhaps, he knows something many of us don’t.

That day he tells us that when one film is over, it’s on to the next one right away: there are no intervals in his working life. If you get out of the habit of making films, according to him, you will no longer be able to make them.

He also implies that were he to stop making films he would not be able to exist. His invincible shield is his belief in stardom. “A star should never show himself as old in a film. He should not use a stick, have white hair. It is not fair to those who come to see him on screen. He should always remain a star.”

While Mr Anand energetically expounds his work and life ethic I couldn’t help thinking of the globe-trotting MF Husain. The ever-agile painter is a decade older than the actor, even more work obsessed, more enthusiastic about whatever he does. Neither of them presses the pause button of life. Both seem to live life according to a similar credo: I work, therefore I am. Perhaps this way, both keep much that comes with old age at bay.

They just keep on going. Keeping up with the times and nonchalantly stepping sidestepping hurdles — all with a certain lightness of being.

Ironically, the immortal lines of the late lyricist Sahir Ludhianvi in Hum Dono aptly describe Dev Anand's take on life: Main zindagi ka saath nibhata chala gaya, har phikr ko dhuen main udata chala gaya.

Yeh dono have it right.