Roshmila Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; April 21, 2015)

In the late '50s, Vijay Anand had fallen ill. His publicist, Amarjeet, nursed him back to health. Soon after, with an assistant in tow, the filmmaker popularly known as Goldie, took off in a jeep to Kashmir and en route wrote a screenplay based on Nirmal Sircar's story, complete with the dialogue. Two lookalikes, Major Manohar Lal Verma and Captain Mahesh Anand, are the protagonists of this story of mistaken identity, and Goldie roped in his older brother, Dev Anand, to play the double roles and produce Hum Dono. Amarjeet was launched as a director with the film but Mohan Churiwala, a close associate of Dev, reveals that it was Goldie who ghost-directed the film. Amarjeet was in the running for the Silver Bear at the 12th Berlin International Film Festival. He lost the award to Francesco Rosi who won it for Salvatore Giuliano.

Dev Anand was hopeful that his first double role would fetch him a third Best Actor Filmfare award, after Guide and Kala Paani. But Raj Kapoor walked away with the Black Lady for his performance in Jiss Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai and Dev lived with the regret all his life.

The actor admitted that Mohd. Rafi's evergreen Main zindagi ka saath nibhata chala gaya, har fikr ko dhuen mein udata chala gaya summed up his life's philosophy. "I don't smoke but even I believe in shrugging off the cares of the world instead of letting them settle heavily on my shoulders," he said. The song was inspired by a Hafiz Jalhandri's nazm, Abhi to main jawaan hoon, which he'd croon when in college. "He told Sahir Ludhianvi to come up with a romantic song based on the same metre," says Churiwala, adding that Sahir and debutant composer Jaidev came up with other gems like Abhi na jao chood ke and the Lata Mangeshkar bhajan Allah tero naam which she sang for free.

Hum Dono was one of Navketan's last black-and-white productions and 50 years later, Hyderabad-based Goldstone Technology approached Dev Anand with the proposal of colourising and re-releasing the film. He wasn't keen having heard unflattering comments about the two colorised films which were re-released. He was told that Mughal-e-Azam had used just eight colours and Naya Daur 16 while for Hum Dono, Goldstone Technology planned to use 65,000 colours, cinemascope and convert the sound to 7.1 Digital Dolby. He gave the nod after after he was shown a two-minute coloured version of Abhi na jao chod ke on a laptop.

Hum Dono Rangeen opened in February 2011 with Dev Anand remniscing about his favourite cinematic moment when Capt. Anand bemoans his lost love and Major Verma talks about the futility of war over a drink. "In '61, the film was way ahead of its time," he had pointed out.

The premiere was a star-studded affair but the two leading ladies, Nanda and Sadhana, couldnt be coaxed into coming out of hibernation. '"Sircar had recomended Meena Kumari to play the Major's ailing wife and Mala Sinha to play the Captain's estranged sweetheart," Churiwala says adding that the Anand brothers opted for Nanda and Sadhana instead. They weren't there but Dev Anand was the star of the night telling everyone, "Dev Anand is still competing with the world!"

Ten months later, on December 3, he left the world.