By Subhash K. Jha, Indo-Asian News Service
Mumbai, July 17 (IANS) A week after Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Rs.500 million epic "Devdas" hit the screens, Bollywood can look forward to a blockbuster as the initial response to the film is quite encouraging.
Trade sources say the film is expected to cross the Rs.500 million mark at the box-office by the end of the week.
Despite the scepticism and criticism about liberties taken by Bhansali in his opulent remake of Saratchandra Chatterjee's 1917 classic novel by the same name, the film opened to 100 percent collections across India, grabbing nearly Rs.1.9 million at the box-office on the first day in Mumbai alone.
The last film to garner 100 percent collections across India was Karan Johar's "Kabhi Kushi Kabhie Gham" (K3G) in December that fetched about Rs.1.3 million on the opening day in Mumbai.
"Devdas" just might become the biggest hit of the year 2002, which has so far seen only one success -- "Raaz".
"The audience response to 'Devdas' is far beyond K3G," a leading exhibitor-distributor here said. "As things stand, it could well be one of the biggest successes of all times."
Trade experts and the media have already declared "Devdas" an outright winner. Crowds headed for the ticket window for advance booking for the second week have been even bigger than for the opening week.
While film critics have greeted "Devdas" with cautious praise and at times cynicism, the audiences and film folk have gone gaga over it, especially Bhansali's departure from the original tale in making his two leading ladies -- Madhuri Dixit and Aishwarya Rai -- meet, exchange words and even sing and dance.
The sequence has become a rage after the film's release and is now on-air on all music and film channels as a promo.
In the novel, the courtesan (Madhuri) and Devdas' love Paro (Aishwarya), who is a lower class woman, never see or even acknowledge each other.
Bhansali's liberties with the text had offended purists but apparently not enough to stem the flow of audiences into the theatres, including in Bengali heartland West Bengal.
Actress and TV anchor Simi Garewal says she wants to see the film again and again.
"The visuals keep playing in my mind. I've never seen such a narrative and visual panache in any director since Raj Kapoor. And Aishwarya Rai is the single-most flawless woman I've seen on screen."
Actor Vivek Oberoi "can't stop raving about 'Devdas'. All my friends are getting tired of me. They say, 'Okay, we know it's great. But can't you talk about something else?' The tears just wouldn't stop flowing after I saw the film.
"The film is our own 'Moulin Rouge' and 'Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon'. That one sequence where the stagecoach slices through the night as the protagonist rushes to meet his beloved before dying is equivalent to everything else most other filmmakers in this country have done.
"'Devdas' makes me proud to be an Indian."
Southern star Madhavan says: "My wife and I saw it in Calgary in a packed audience of Asians and whites. Believe me, a pin drop would have sounded like a bomb in that theatre.
"The minute the tragedy took over I was spellbound. I called Sanjay from Calgary, not to pay my usual congratulatory compliments but because I felt a genuine and urgent need to tell this man that he's a genius beyond description."
Actress Urmila Matondkar, who saw the film at a private screening Monday along with the Bachchans, calls the film "sheer poetry".
Lyricist Javed Akhtar, who hasn't attended a public screening of a film for years, bought a ticket in Pune to see "Devdas". He thinks after the legendary Guru Dutt, if anyone knows how to use the camera it's Bhansali.
"Distributors are calling me up from all over India to say how relieved they are. I feel liberated, as though a huge burden has been lifted. The praise is... like balm on my frayed nerves," says Bhansali.
About the negative reviews, Bhansali says: "I find it strange that some critics haven't found a single thing worth praising in 'Devdas'. Is it so bad? All I can say is, the audience has its own mind and is exercising it.
"The voices of dissent just don't matter."
Though some British and Indian newspapers have trashed the film's extravagance, Bhansali is unperturbed. "Only I know what financial tribulations I had to go through to put up the sets I believed in and to have my characters dress up the way I visualised them. For me 'Devdas' was never about a Rs.500 million budget. It was always about how I use it."
http://in.news.yahoo.com/020717/43/1s2z4.html
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me does.. it sounds like watching a baby crying over his lost dummy...!! in this case SRK is crying over Paro.. toss pot!!
:vsneaky:
Dont compare Oranges with apples 
