It was a birthday party with a difference on Wednesday for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the evergreen Bollywood star Dev Anand.
While the Prime Minister turned 75, Dev Anand celebrated his 84th birthday with Dr. Singh releasing the actor’s “rags to riches” story, recalling one of his most popular film songs, “Main zindagi ka saath nibhata chala gaya, Har fikr ko dhuen me udata chala gaya…..” from the much talked about “Hum Dono”.
Dr. Singh released the autobiography of the “immortal” film star noting that the “chocolate hero” had possibly acted with every top heroine over five long decades — from Suraiya and Waheeda Rehman to Madhubala and Zeenat Aman.
United Progressive Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi was prominent at the function, which saw the celebrated actor hailing her as also Dr. Singh for “their capacity to take the country skywards so that it becomes an envy of the world”.
Speaking about his autobiography, “Romancing with Life”, Dev Anand said: “From an ordinary boy, a non-entity, to now, as I stand here in front of you today, this book is about 62 years of my struggles … (about) my joys, my sorrows, my highs and my lows.
It is an honest depiction of a man with all his strengths and weaknesses….” Dressed in a velvet bottle-green jacket and trousers with a matching scarf, the seasoned actor-director-producer said it was “a book of the people who have given my life to me. Now I am giving it back to them”.
Dr. Singh, recalling that Dev Anand’s childhood and youth were marked by deprivation and dislocation due to Partition which forced him to migrate to free India, said, “The trials and tribulations of those difficult years did not warp his personality, nor did they stunt his talent.” “Soon Dev Anand discovered his true calling in Indian cinema and rose to become one of the trinity who ruled the hearts of every Indian — Raj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar and Dev Anand,” said the Prime Minister.
Expressing hope that the book would inspire newer generations to aspire for a life of greater creativity, Dr. Singh said Dev Anand’s was “a classic rags to riches life, where those riches have been earned through dint of sheer hard work and dedication”.
Maintaining that “the sun never sets on Indian films”, Dr. Singh said, “Hollywood may have more money invested in it, it may be bigger business, but I am sure that more people across the world actually watch Bollywood movies!”
Posted By Staff Reporter: Gurgaon City News
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