In an article by Pankaj Sachdeva (on Instagram – readingfilms) in his blog, ‘Dichotomy of Irony‘, he writes about Devdas (2002), directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali. Among many observations he put into context for us readers, one observation caught my attention so big, that after months, I remembered it randomly while listening to a song from Dev.D (2009) directed by Anurag Kashyap.
Before reading further, refer to the image below to know Pankaj’s thoughts about how two similar ornaments that are used to adorn the feet differentiate the societal status of two women who are madly in love with our fateful protagonist, Devdas. I was actually spellbound by this analysis which might or might not have been intended by the creators. And since then whenever I happen to hear or see ‘Dola Re Dola’, I just can’t avoid remembering this analysis.
Coming to the present, it has been more than a year since I watched Dev.D (2009) and you know what kind of pathbreaking soundtrack that Amit Trivedi gave us and I have been listening to it for most of my Spotify time recently. And one day the song ‘Paayaliya’ struck a revelation.
Here’s a song for our Chanda based on ‘Payal’ and not ‘Ghungroo’. Chanda’s ‘Payal’ is restless and wants to go to her beloved’s home soon.
Paayaliya chan chan chan chan
Shor kare mohe piya ghar jaaun!
I am not saying that Dev.D makers wanted this song to be a metaphor for this or that. It’s just a simple (maybe unworthy) connection between two movies that share the same source material and a movie lover who happened to glance upon this happenstance wanted to share it with fellow film lovers.
Anurag Kashyap had visible references to SLB’s Devdas (2002) and this little coincidence acts like a cherry on top of them. And the first time we get to see Leni watching Devdas (2002) in a DVD player onboard a bus, guess what lines are playing through!
Band ke main ghungroo
Pehan ke main payal!
And oh, yes. There’s a ‘Ghungroo’ reference too. And this reference too is inverted. Here Paro’s ‘Ghungroo’ beats for Dev, not Chanda’s. It’s in Dhol Yaara Dhol song.
Paav me ghungroo baje re!
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