The first thing I had heard from here and there about 'Dev.D' was that it was a 'modern take' on Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay's famous novella 'Devdaas'. It was only after seeing it that I realized as to how it was much more than that. 'Devdaas' is a script that has been visited twice in B-Town's history. Once by the legendary sobbing superstar Dileep Kumar sa'ab and the second time by the stammering success story Shah Rukh Khan. I have seen both of them and found that both of them stuck to the basic premise. Arrogant rich boy Dev finds his fancies in childhood sweetheart Paro. Being of different economic backgrounds there is serious resistance to this blossoming romance and so Paro is married off to someone else while Dev drinks himself to death while finding comfort in nautch girl Chandramukhi's court. Dev eventually dies a heart broken lover without the shadow of Paro's love. As much as I had expected 'Dev.D' to be similar to this plot what I ended up seeing was superlatively refreshing to say the least.

From what I could fathom the only similarities between the third version of the novel and the former two were the names of the main characters. Apart from that everything else has been blown to smithereens in Kashyap's take. In 'Dev.D', Devdaas goes from being a character in a novel to a metaphor of any cocky young man. Our Dev isn't afraid to ask his Paro if she touches herself. He isn't scared to ask her if she could send him a topless photograph of herself via the Internet and he doesn't flinch calling his father by his first name. And Paro? Well she is not the timid and submissive damsel as seen in the previous versions either. This one actually ties a mattress to her cycle and heads to the farms for a session of mad monkey lovemaking with her Dev. She photographs herself topless, gets the film developed, scans the photograph and emails it to Dev in London. She isn't afraid to grab his arms and smother him with kisses at the first opportunity. The list of such brazenly relevant modifications to Chattopadhyay's original work goes on. The Dev in this feature is not so much 'in love' with his Paro as much as he is obsessed by the idea of loving her. He yearns for sex – plain and simple. No expensive duets to be designed for this emotion to come through. No colorful dancers gyrating in unison in the middle of a mustard seed field. No sir. It is this direct, no frills approach to human attraction that I found the most refreshing.

He is a clueless loser who is a victim of his own self. Period. What is more? The 'friendly' Chunnilal in the original is a cheap pimp in this one who ends up being a close liaison with Dev in his visits to Chanda's brothel.

One can easily argue that Dev.D is nothing more than garish sleaze dished out in a format that is similar to the original Devdaas but I would have to respectfully disagree. It takes a bold film maker to get his female protagonist to say she has to use the potty when the male protagonist wants to undress her during a bout of 'pity sex'. A feat, I am sure, no 'established actress' can mouth even if her life depended on it. It is in things like this that the movie goes from being a B-class dish out to an A-class path breaker. If not anything, what Kashyap has managed to do is show Bollywood his middle finger when it comes to documenting romance. I can safely say no one will ever dare to make another remake of 'Devdaas' after watching 'Dev.D' since it's a benchmark too high to surpass.

Performances belong primarily to Abhay. This young man is making excellent decisions in his role selections and is quickly becoming a metaphor for 'hatke' cinema genre. I liked him in 'Ek Chalis Ki Last Local', 'Manorama Six Feet Under', 'Oye Lucky Lucky Oye' and now 'Dev.D'. A very strong performer with a wonderful future ahead of him. Mahie Gill puts up a good performance as the hopelessly in love and clueless about Dev's terrible attitude Paro. Her eyes speak louder than her voice and that was something which I liked the most. She captures the quintessential Indian girl with apt brilliance. Newcomer Kalki Koechlin is a surprise! This French-Indian actress does a terrific job as Chanda, the misguided and abused young girl who is still coming to terms with a lost family. Her Tamil is quite eloquent and on further research I found out that she does speak it fluently.

'Dev.D' stands out like an eyesore of a scarecrow in the middle of a familiarly patterned sugarcane crop.