#365DaysOfWriting – Day Thirty-Three
After a long time, I listened to the Dev.D soundtrack.
Amit Trivedi. I remember calling him the current generation’s AR Rahman.
I couldn’t have been more wrong. This is a man who has carved a niche for himself. He’s this generation’s Amit Trivedi.
And I discovered his genius in Dev.D. As did many others.
Let’s talk about the film first. Dev.D was Anurag Kashyap’s no-holds-barred vision of Devdas – which is a rather boring story of a drunkard and his failed love life, if you scratch the surface. It’s also been made into two incredibly boring Bollywood movies before Dev.D – and the ‘protagonists’ were played by Dilip Kumar (in 1955 – yes, I found a Bimal Roy film boring, sue me) and Shah Rukh Khan respectively (in 2002 – Sanjay Leela Bhansali did manage to make the film look good though, to his credit).
The biggest mistake in these films was that there was nothing new in the way they were told. They were linear and stuck to the original story – which was okay in Bimalda’s case I suppose, but in 2002 you’d expect something different.
Anurag Kashyap, in true Anurag Kashyap style, tore up the formula, kept the essence of the story intact and delivered the best adaptation of Devdas we’ve seen yet. For once, I actually was invested in the story.
But what made Dev.D a crackerjack adaptation was the music. It held up 50% of the film, like one of the main characters. Abhay Deol, Mahie Gill and Kalki Koechlin were all brilliant in front of the camera, but behind the scenes, Amit Trivedi was an ace supporting act to Anurag Kashyap. What makes this soundtrack so bloody brilliant is the variety. It’s eclectic, contemporary and distinctly Indian in an almost rustic way.
My favourite songs are Emotional Atyachar, O Pardesi and Nayan Tarse. You can already see that all 3 songs are completely different from each other, and yet, it feels like one album. That is where the genius of Trivedi comes to the fore.
And this reminds me, it’s been a while since I’ve seen the film. Time for a re-watch. So who’s my favourite music director of this generation? You know the answer.
