Bimal Roy told the story. Sanjay Leela Bhansali constructed the sets. Anurag Kashyap has sexed it up. In the hands of Bollywood’s enfant terrible, Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s Devdas undergoes a sea change or, rather, a sex change.

This is, of course, not colonial Bengal of the early 20th century, this is India’s youngistaan meri jaan at the dawn of the 21st century, waking up to a world of MMS clips, sex clubs and ecstasy-coke concoctions. This is a world where sex comes first, love later. If at all, that is.

So you have Devender Singh Dhillon aka Dev D aka Devdas, who’s back from London to his village in Punjab, on the quest for relentless romps with his childhood playmate Parminder aka Paro.

Forget the pre-decided mutual chastity, the single-most important factor why the Devdas-Paro romance is immortalised in our consciousness, the new D and P jump at each other like wild animals.

Yes, even she wants to do it. In what is a masterful twist to the original, Anurag gifts the woman her right to sex. It is Paro who carries the mattress on her shoulders to the mustard fields and launches herself on Dev. “Kuch karne ko bola tha tumne...” she announces.

But the manager ki beti can stay on top for only so long. Conned into believing that she is sleeping with other men as well, Dev discards her. Paro marries the old man with two kids and rather than be melancholy about it, takes off on a jhatka-ful jig in her bridalwear right in front of the baraati. Jai ho, Hindi film ki heroine, jai ho!

Then there is Lenny. Some time ago, somewhere in Delhi, the fuzzy-headed 17-year-old had become the victim of a raunchy MMS clip that did the rounds. She went on to become Paharganj’s high-class escort Chanda, choosing her name after watching Madhuri’s Mar daala moves on TV.

Dev lands up at Chanda’s pleasure pad with Paro on his lips and his father’s credit card in his wallet. This is the intermission point of the 150-minute-long Dev D, a half that truly takes Bollywood by the collar and shakes it up. But sadly for Kashyap and all of us, it’s all downhill from there.

What follows is a case of what could have been. Dev tries to forget Paro but fails. He tries to warm to Chanda but fails. He tries to start with Paro again but this time, in one of the better scenes of the second half, she shows him his aukad. And so he drowns himself in vodka, sniffs some coke, swallows a not-so-bitter pill.

On screen it may be Dev who goes on a trip but it is actually Anurag who again veers into self-indulgence mode a la No Smoking. The story comes to a complete halt, the style takes over and all you are left with are a few pretty shots strewn here and there. Also what fails to bite, unlike the Dev-Paro chemistry, is the Dev-Chanda romance. It is sugar-coated territory, something which obviously doesn’t come naturally to Anurag.

And just like the film, which is a tale of two halves, so is the 18-song soundtrack. In the first half, you don’t mind them even if they come back-to-back. (Don’t be surprised if you find yourself jumping in your seat to Emosanal atyachar!) But the songs in the latter half only add to the agony.

The performances are excellent. Mahie Gill as Paro is the pick of the lot. There is an uncanny resemblance to Suchitra Sen but her approach is entirely different. It’s her wild ways in the first few reels that really get the party going.

Kalki as Chanda is good in parts, especially in the scene when she mouths the line of the film: “Half the country got off on my clip, but they called me a slut.” Her stilted speech can get irritating, though.

Abhay brings a very different texture to Devdas. He does a lot of the same things as the original character but it’s his way of going about it that is completely unconventional. Of course, the film ends on a very different note and it’s to Abhay’s credit that he makes the character graph seem consistent.

With songs surfacing like Internet pop-ups, the soundtrack needed to be stronger than it is. Music director Amit Trivedi and lyricist Amitabh Bhattacharya do deliver the goods but the editing (Aarti Bajaj) is so disjointed that some of the tracks are lost in celluloid translation. No complaints about cinematographer Rajeev Ravi who lights up the frames with panache.

Over the dozen-odd celluloid adaptations that he has gone through, the Devdas character has become a benchmark for the ultimate in Hindi melodrama. With Dev D, Anurag Kashyap tries to change him into a man of the real world who doesn’t inflict a scar on Paro’s pretty face but is left bloody by Chanda’s sexuality.

Dev D had the potential to change a lot of rules of the Bollywood game but Anurag’s uncontrollable addiction for letting loose causes it to stop short. Like Dev, he should move on.

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