Ahead of Dev D’s re-release, Abhay Deol recalls how 'creative flow' with Anurag Kashyap changed a scene

Abhay Deol

Abhay Deol, Kalki Koechlin and Mahie Gill-starrer Dev D will be re-released in theatres on April 24. The film, directed by Anurag Kashyap, was a modern-day adaptation of Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay's Bengali novel Devdas. The novel has had multiple iterations, with Shah Rukh Khan's Devdas being another popular one in mainstream Hindi cinema. Kashyap's take on Devdas, titled Dev D, also worked well at the box office. The film was initially released in theatres in 2009 and is now set to be re-released after 17 years.

Abhay shares scene from the film

Abhay shared a scene from the film where he meets actress Kalki Koechlin's character, Chanda, a sex worker at night while continuing with her studies during the day.

The scene shows Abhay's character, Dev, waiting outside a room while Chanda is inside, seemingly engaged in an intimate moment. When Dev eventually enters, he realises that she isn't with anyone physically but is instead involved in a private, intimate phone conversation.

He shared the scene, when Dev meets Chanda for the first time, and captioned it: "Anurag: ‘You sit here waiting to be let into Chanda's room and you can hear her having sex'. He said that with a mischievous, almost perverse glint in his eyes (sic)."

The actor further revealed how he gave his input in the scene: "Me: (a little grossed out but also enjoying Anurag's sense of humour), ‘But Anurag, Kalki can speak Tamil, Hindi, and English. What if it turns out that she's having phone sex with someone who has a fetish for sex talk in various languages and accents? Dev and the audience discover that once he enters her room?' Anurag pauses, the glint in his eyes gets brighter and his smile gets wider. Nothing makes a scene better than a creative flow between an actor and a director (sic)."

More about Dev D

Dev.D is a modern-day adaptation of Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay's 1917 Bengali novel Devdas. The film is set in modern-day Punjab and Delhi and follows Devendra Singh "Dev" Dhillon, a privileged young man who descends into alcohol and drug addiction after a failed relationship with his childhood love, Parminder "Paro" Kaur, eventually forming an unexpected bond with Chanda, an escort navigating her own emotional trauma.