Two misleading letters (Devar)

The cast is as perfect as Hrishikesh Mukherjee's Anupama. The story is believable, the songs are in place, the performances commendable. Then why is it that Mohan Sehgal's Devar left me with a niggling feeling in my heart. The movie starts off so well and as the script is penned, it should have thrown up plenty of firecrackling histrionics. But somewhere down the line, even the talented actors lose steam, or find the going rather tedious. Adapted from Tarashankar Bandopadhyay's short story, Naa, Devar  is a tale that could have been one of the best dramas of 1966. Could have been for sure...

The tale starts with the bonding of two children, a girl and a boy, who we can make out are almost sweethearts. The boy Bhola, loves hunting birds and teasing Bhawariya, the girl (who looks very much like a young boy!). Bhanwariya sings Bhola a song, Duniya mein aisa, which will later become a leitmotif of their childhood love and bonding. But owing to Bhawariya's father's intervention, the two separate, with Bhawariya promising Bhola that she will come back to him next year in the holidays.

The scene forwards to years later when Bhola is now Shankar (Dharmendra), a dashing young man, who is fond of singing and hunting. He is the only son of the village Diwan (Sapru). His elder cousin, Suresh (Deven Verma), lives in the same house and is treated like the son of the family. He is extremely fond of reading and writing while Shankar has no love for the letters. A matchfixer (Dhumal), gets two alliances for the two youngsters. After much discussion it is ascertained that Shankar would go to meet Shanta (Shashikala), the girl in question for Suresh. And Suresh would go to meet Madhumati (Sharmila Tagore), the girl for Shankar. While Shankar does his duties and comes back to Suresh saying that Shanta is a lovely girl apt for Suresh, Suresh does a volteface. He is so smitten by Madhumati's beauty and charm that he deviously decides to malign himself before Shanta's parents and caste aspersions against Shankar before Madhumati's brother, Gopinath (Tarun Bose). He writes two misleading letters and sends them to the two concerned parties and the alliances get botched up. Suresh also convinces Shankar that Madhumati is not fit enough for Shankar. So, Shanta's father (Raj Mehra), on receiving the letter, asks for Shankar's hand from the Diwan for his daughter.
Suresh on the other hand plays a dirty trick and agrees to marry Madhumati, lest she becomes maligned in the marriage market. His family see him as a noble soul and do not read into his ploy. So, Shankar is married to Shanta (Interestingly Dharmendra and Shashikala make quite a nice pair) and Suresh ties his knot with Madhumati.

While all should have been well, fate does not agree with the matches made. Shanta is devastated when she finds out that Shankar is not as erudite as he was presented. She hurls abuses at him  on their wedding night and leaves for her father's home. While her mother is the sane woman who asks her to be happy with her lot, her father sides with her and instigates her to never accept Shankar. Shanta behaves rudely with Shankar at all times and goes to the extent of calling him a cheat and a beast. At one point while you can understand that she is very hurt by the falsity of her situation, you feel like shaking her up and asking her to move on with life and be happy with it. After all, Shankar is not a bad life partner. In fact, he is sensitive, loving, caring, rich and gorgeous to look at. How can Shanta not be happy with that? She blackmails Shankar emotionally, to the extent that in a drunken stupor, he whiplashes her. Things spiral out of control, despite Madhumati trying to rub some balm on the frayed condition of Shankar, as well as Shanta.
Even while all this drama is playing, Shankar discovers that Madhumati is his long-lost childhood sweetheart, but keeps mum about it. It's cruel how fate (using Suresh) plays such a nasty trick on Shankar. He loved Bhawariya but could not get her. Now he loves Shanta, but she is not willing to accept him. Shankar's state is despondent. And Suresh is not looking like he is going to speak up the truth very soon...

The other day I watched a documentary on the music director Roshan. It threw up a bouquet of fantastic numbers that the talented musician had composed. I'm afraid, Devar's tracks are not some of those. The only two worthy-of-mention songs I guess are Duniya mein aisa and Roothe saiyyan, a mujra number. Mukesh's voice does not suit Dharmendra and the songs sung by him are quite nondescript.

Dharmendra and Shashikala, I've said before, look good together. The man is breathtakingly handsome, and the woman, surprisingly does not look wicked. Even in all her rudeness, she has an elegant air about her. Here she is not the conniving woman, she is just a polished lady extremely hurt because she feels she was duped to marry Shankar. I love the hairdos of Shanta and a certain poised charm envelop her. Just that she should have been a bit more soft towards her husband, who was willing to shower her will all the love he had in his heart. In fact, owing to her sorrow, the actions that her father hurl towards Shankar is too OTT. Such drama could definitely have been avoided if Shanta would have been more rational. But in Shanta's shoes, Shashikala dis do a good job.
Despite Madhumati being the epitome of goodness, I find her quite boring. She resorts to too much pontification. She is too much of a goody-two-shoes, lacking the spunk that Shanta has. The biggest disappointment is that Sharmila Tagore does not look the best here. She tries to, but there is something lacking. And I'm yet to figure out the problem...
The biggest disappointment is the utter lack of chemistry between Deven Verma and Sharmila Tagore. Considering that Suresh (Deven Verma was quite a looker) felt the pangs of desire the moment he set his eyes on Madhumati, there should have been a tangible physical connect between the couple. In the film, the two talk as if they are siblings and never really are shown to share romantic words! My guess is that it never occurred to Sehgal that he should take care to establish the chemistry between his leading lady and her plotting husband...