MUMBAI: They don’t make them any more.
They don’t make romance like Devdas any more.
They don’t make songs like “Bairi Piya” any more
They don’t write lyrics like that any more — “Khushi ne humari humein maar daala.”
They don’t compose melodies that touch the soul any more (thank you, Ismail Darbar).
They don’t write clap-worthy dialogues like “Kaun kambakht bardasht karne ko peeta hai…” any more.
The lovers don’t cry or laugh or tease or fight like that any more.
The actors don’t dance with the same grace any more, or simply talk with their eyes any more.
And the audience — we — don’t relax enough to watch, feel, and cherish any more.
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Devdas (2002) took me back.
Back to story telling that came from the heart, played to the gallery, full steam and unapologetic. Made colourful and poignant with sound track, song, dance, costumes, and poetic cinematography.
First published in Bengali, Sarat chandra Chattopadhyay’s novel has been reimagined in Indian cinema several times. Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s 2002 film — re-released in theatres this week, thanks to Shah Rukh Khan’s 60th birthday — brought me back to the cinema halls, curious if the film still connected.
The audience’s silence at the end ,said it all.
The film’s merits hit home more than ever. One began to appreciate a time when emotion didn’t pretend to be subtle. When pauses meant something. When a sigh was cinematic. When the trees and the fountains (in this movie) were used to leave much to our imagination.
Watching it again, I realised that what I miss isn’t just the grandeur or the artifice — neither is it blind nostalgia. It’s the sincerity. The slow, deliberate ache of it all. A love story that wasn’t afraid of its own excess. The kind that knew how to bring glory to tragedy.
Today, our romances — on screen and off — are boring, wannabe smart, designed to fit inside conversations and captions. We text, swipe, ghost, recover — all in the time it once took Paro to walk to the window. We don’t wait for someone to say “Main tumhe bhool jaaun, yeh ho nahi sakta,” because we no longer believe anyone would mean it.
And may be that’s progress. Maybe it’s healthier that we no longer die for love, or drink ourselves into oblivion. But I can’t help wondering if, in freeing ourselves from Devdas - like tragedy, we also lost something — the capacity to surrender without a safety net. The willingness to feel deeply without an audience.
Devdas may be flawed — even infuriating in how much power it gives a broken man — but it’s also a film that allows emotion to flood the whole screen.
The women, Paro and Chandramukhi, don’t shy away from their feelings; they inhabit them. Paro burns and blazes with her sheer guroor and mischief. Chandramukhi glows — defiant and compassionate — both loving in ways that have no place in today’s transactional world. Their love is extravagant, foolish, and beautifully human. Bhansali dared to go beyond the book and bring them respect (something Devdas never gave them), in the garb of drama and the famous “Dola-re-Dola” song.
When I watch them now, despite their feminist dialogues, I see two women who would probably not be understood today. Paro would be told to move on — and definitely to chuck that ever-aflame diya. Chandramukhi would be dismissed not for being a courtesan, but for being too giving. Both would be accused of lacking self-respect - as if devotion were a defect. But perhaps what they had was something else entirely: the courage to feel without caring about being judged. To choose love knowing it could undo them.
That’s what the old romances gave us — not just melo drama but permission. Permission to feel more than we could explain. To long without apology. To weep in public. To take ourselves — and our hearts — seriously.
When Devdas drinks and drinks from his paimana, slips, falls — literally and metaphorically — when Paro’s anklets echo down an empty corridor, or Chandramukhi’s eyes fill before she smiles — something in us softens.
For a moment, the heart is full. More so when we have Divas like Aishwarya and Madhuri who seduce the camera and us with goddess-like grace, who flare with feminist fire through their eyes,the cinema’s most adored lover- Shahrukh Khan drowning in his misery with Kapadia’s applause-worthy dialogues, all together, creating magic on the silver screen.
We remember what it was like to believe that love could be epic yet intimate, each shade carrying its own pulse.
Even if Jackie Shroff, miscast as Chunnilal, brings unintentional humour, the character’s presence succeeds in giving space to an endearing camaraderie — captured in the little dance by the trio, Madhuri, Shroff and Shah Rukh, to the joyful “Chalak Chalak Chal Chalkaye Re.” A shade of love you wish Devdas had recognised.
So yes — they don’t make them any more.
They don’t make lovers like Devdasany more. And maybe that’s for the best.
But they don’t make hearts like Paro and Chandramukhi any more - fierce yet forgiving. And that, somehow, feels like a loss
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(PVR Cinemas is celebrating the legendary Shah Rukh Khan’s 60th birthday in grand style by bringing his iconic films back to the big screen)
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