"You can’t imitate Mr Dilip Kumar. Whoever copies Dilip Kumar, they are idiots like me," said Shah Rukh at the launch of Nasreen Munni Kabir’s book "The Dialogue of Devdas", which has complete dialogues by Rajinder Singh Bedi, based on a screenplay by Nabendu Ghosh and lyrics by Sahir Ludhianvi from Bimal Roy’s immortal classic "Devdas".
Shah Rukh Khan starrer "Devdas" was treated differently by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, who gave it a larger than life feel and the magnum opus had Madhuri Dixit and Aishwarya Rai as Chandramukhi and Paro respectively. The film won lots of awards.
Dilip Kumar could not make it to the event. However, he sent a letter and Shah Rukh read it out at the event at the Mehboob Studios.
After a decade of the film’s release, Shah Rukh feels that it was stupid of him to go ahead and do "Devdas", which is a big screen adaptation of Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s novel.
"I am not someone who would like to do something which has been so beautifully crafted. I have a very deep regard for the fact that my parents loved ‘Devdas’. I was very young and stupid that I said yes and did it, but as I am getting mature, hopefully more intelligent, and perhaps would not be able to do it this time," the 46-year-old said.
The first Hindi director to adapt the book was P.C. Barua who made it with K.L. Sehgal, then came the Dilip Kumar’s version in 1955, followed by the SRK starrer.
The superstar also feels he would have never mustered the courage to to be part of "Devdas" had he seen Dilip Kumar’s version.
"Had we seen the film before making it, we would never had the guts to make it. Sanjay, Aishwarya and Madhuri we all felt that first we should finish the film then we should watch it," he said.
It is said that so far the novel has been made into films 15 times, including in languages like Bengali, Telugu, Tamil, Urdu and Assamese.
