Last updated on May 2, 2019
By Katelyn Marshall
Volunteer State Community College will feature its third International Film Series Friday, March 22 at 5:30 p.m., in the Caudill Hall auditorium. This month’s will be “Devdas.”
“I have never seen the film itself,” Sarah Crotzer, an English faculty and instructor, said. “I know that it’s based on a popular Indian novel and it’s the latest in a series of remakes of that novel. It was made in 2002 and is considered a new classic of Bollywood cinema. But I haven’t had the opportunity to watch it myself yet, so I really don’t know anything else.”
After a wealthy family prohibits him from marrying the woman he is in love with, Devdas Mukherjee’s life spirals further and further out of control as he takes up alcohol and a life of vice to numb the pain.
In the early 1900’s, Kaushalya (Smitha Jaykar) hears that her younger son, Devdas (Shah Rukh Khan), is to return home after he had left at age 10 for law school in England. Kaushalya tells her neighbor Sumitra (Kirron Kher), who is overjoyed. Sumitra’s daughter “Paro” Parvati Chakraborty (Aishwarya Rai) and Devdas have shared a deep friendship since childhood. When Devdas returns, the friendship between him and Paro becomes love.
Everyone believes that Devdas and Paro will get married, but Devdas’ scheiming sister-in-law Kumud (Ananya Khare) reminds Kaushalya of Paro’s maternal lineage of nautanki performers, inappropriate for the Mukherjee family. Sumitra publicly announces her desire for Devdas and Paro to marry and Kaushalya rejects and humiliates her in public by saying that she is from a lower class in society.
When Devdas’ father also rejects Paro, Devdas leaves his parents’ house and takes refuge at a brothel. Devdas leaves a letter to Paro stating that had never existed between them. Eventually he asks Paro to elope but she refuses, reminding him of the way he had discarded her so easily. Devdas is heartbroken at having lost Paro and becomes an alcoholic. Eventually he becomes so ill that the slightest dose of alcohol could kill him. Finally, on the verge of death, Devdas travels to Paro’s house and collapses under a tree. Devdas dies, whispering Paro’s name with his last breath. At the same time, the lamp Paro had lit for him flickers out forever for all eternity, according to IMDb.
This movie is free and open to the public for all to come.
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