On Thursday, the Election Commission will finally announce the results of the historic election last month in which people decided to vote out the king and his crown and vote in his enemies, the former Maoist guerrillas, and their vision of a republic. Have you ever been to Copenhagen' he said. I don't make them for outsiders,' I repeated. 'Mr Harwani, I make films only for myself. He was extremely respectful, and I was polite in return.
The thespian's visit comes at another crucial moment in Nepal's history. 304 DEV ANAND ROMANCING WITH LIFE 305 which I later discovered he always carried. While the rest of his schedule is not known yet - especially if he is visiting the Narayanhity royal palace before it is turned into a museum and empathises with King Gyanendra - Dev Anand would hold a public interaction Saturday in a programme organised by the Indian Embassy in Kathmandu and two local NGOs. He said he had dropped his plan to make a film on the tragic massacre in the royal palace seven years ago, in which Birendra and nine other royals were killed, out of his desire not to hurt the sentiments of the family.ĭev Anand would be the star attraction at a book fair that kicks off in the capital Friday.
The star had in the past come to Nepal as a state guest to attend the wedding of the previous king, Birendra. The king himself awarded the honour and in turn received a spontaneous hug from Dev Anand, an unprecedented gesture of equality towards the royals, regarded as the incarnation of god and treated with reverence by the public. Dev Anand was among the few foreign visitors to enjoy cordial relations with the embattled royal family. That was the year when King Gyanendra's attempt to seize absolute power triggered international condemnation and foreign governments began distancing themselves from the royal regime. suggest that he lacked a philosophy of life. That is the buzz here with the evergreen actor, who turned into a film director from reigning hero in India's giant Hindi film industry in the course of a career spanning nearly five decades, arriving in Kathmandu Friday to promote his autobiography "Romancing With Life".ĭev Anand, whose blockbuster film on drug-snorting hippies "Hare Ram Hare Krishna" promoted Nepal as an idyllic locale, had last come to the Himalayan nation three years ago to receive a controversial award at the first - and only - film festival held during the absolute reign of King Gyanendra.Ĭritics said that Dev Anand was conferred the award because of his closeness to Nepal's royal family. Editorial contributions and letters should be addressed to the Editor. "Vasudevan s innovative concept of the imaginary public, developed across these essays through close analysis of Indian cinema s melodramatic practices and the socio-cultural conditions of their operation, recasts our understanding of the relation between text and context and offers a welcome new approach not only to the application of melodrama to Indian filmmaking but to theorization of cinema itself.KATHMANDU: As Nepal's cornered King Gyanendra awaits a countdown to the abolition of his crown, will his last days in the endangered royal palace be livened up with a visit by India's legendary film actor Dev Anand? The actor is giving the first in-depth interview about his autobiography, Romancing With Life, which Manmohan Singh is due to release in Delhi on September 26, the author’s 84th birthday. The author s deep familiarity with world cinema traditions shines forth and illuminates local questions and challenges prevailing theories." - M. A few hours before me, Nawaz Sharif, now based in the UK, had dropped in to see Dev Anand at his London hotel. "One of the pioneers of film studies in India, in this long-awaited book, locates Indian popular cinema in a world context and offers a thoroughly revised understanding of melodrama as a global aesthetic with a rich Indian history. He proceeds from a genuinely global perspective, while nonetheless persuasively making the case for regionally specific and local factors in the history of modern popular culture." - Thomas Elsaesser The Melodramatic Public is not only the most comprehensive book to redirect our understanding of Indian popular cinema, carefully tracing its manifold roots and conducting a painstaking archaeology of the genre, but Vasudevan also redraws the map. "Here, finally, is the definitive and authoritative study of melodrama we have been hoping for.