Double Dose

A film festival of Dev Anand's movies is on at Siri Fort this weekend. On Saturday, I watched the two movies that were being played: Hum Dono and Tere Ghar Ke Saamne. As is usually the case with me, I went with no expectations: neither good nor bad. I enjoyed both the movies.

Hum Dono is the story of a poor man in love with a rich girl who joins the army and meets a Major who looks exactly like him and the events that follow this happy/unhappy coincidence. The movie makes you laugh, cry, think and sing along with the Dev Anands and their respective love interests and mothers. Some of the questions raised by the movie were: why does a man join the army and go to war? What does his family go through? What is true affection?

Tere Ghar Ke Saamne is the story of a young architect who falls in love with a client's daughter, only to discover that the client is his own father's biggest enemy. To make matters worse, he is expected to design the houses of the client and his own father which are on adjacent plots with both of them trying to make houses better than the other. As luck (and the script writer) would have it, they end up choosing the same design. The movie is hilarious and the audience was laughing their heads off! It carried the message of rising above one's ego and spreading love.

The movies belonged to the early 1960s. Yet, one could easily relate to the situations. Special mention of the portrayal of the parent-child relationship in both the movies which had me and my mother exchanging glances on more than one occasion.

The music was excellent. Though the songs were a little too frequent in Tere Ghar Ke Saamne, they were very enjoyable. People were singing along. Immortal songs.

About the man himself, these movies showed a young Dev Anand whose unique mannerisms charm you. In his later movies, he looks too old to carry off that style and the mannerisms tend to look exaggerated. I guess I finally understood why I had his poster up in my room when I was a kid!