Recently, acclaimed theatre personality Sohaila Kapur presented a heartfelt ode to her three celebrated uncles—Chetan, Dev, and Vijay (Goldie) Anand—in a production aptly titled Anand Hi Anand. Staged at New Delhi’s Radisson Blu Plaza Delhi Airport in association with Media Net Works and Travel Secrets magazine, the performance transported audiences into the golden era of Indian cinema through the lives, quirks, and legacies of the legendary Anand brothers.
Vignettes from a Storied Legacy
Anand hi Anand was peppered with delightful, little-known anecdotes. One of the most amusing: Dev Anand was once “banned” from wearing a black shirt—apparently because he looked so irresistibly handsome in it that women would swoon. His marriage to Mona Singha (better known as Kalpana Kartik) was another secret—so hush-hush that only the cinematographer on set caught sight of her ring.
But not all anecdotes were lighthearted. One of the most poignant moments in Dev Anand’s life was his heartbreak with actress Suraiyya. Deeply in love, he proposed to her, but Suraiyya—pressured by her conservative grandmother who opposed the match—turned him down. The rejection left Dev Anand distraught and depressed for months. Friends recalled that he wandered the streets of Bombay, chain-smoking, unable to eat or sleep. Yet it was this heartbreak that pushed him deeper into his work, giving his performances an intensity and vulnerability that became his hallmark.
And then came a gem from director Chetan Anand’s uncompromising style. That incident was narrated by Chetan’s elder son, Ketan, to Sohaila Kapur- Chetan once kept Rajesh Khanna hungry the whole day to elicit the raw emotion needed for a tragic scene. “It was more for lack of food or water,” Sohaila wittily remarked, “that he was crying.”
Introspection and Quirks
Adding to that portrait, Sohaila remembered how her Chetan uncle loved long introspective silences. His son Ketan shared that when poet-lyricist Kaifi Azmi, a close friend, would visit, the two would often sit wordlessly, staring into space—Kaifi Saab gently twirling his walking stick. “One visitor later grumbled that visiting Chetan Saab was like talking to the walls!”
Goldie Anand, by contrast, was a man of music and rhythm. Every Sunday, dressed in a lungi-kurta, he would sit at his harmonium and sing. Once, struggling to adjust the instrument around his growing belly, he laughed and confessed in Punjabi: “gogad zyada phail gayi hai” (the belly has spread out too much).
A Niece Among Giants
What was it like to grow up with such legendary mamas? “It was a regular niece-mama relationship,” Sohaila recalled. “My mom would take me to Bombay (it wasn’t Mumbai then) during school holidays, and we would stay with either of them—mostly with Uncle Dev since he had a bigger house. The binding factor was my mom, and those Bombay visits were almost an annual ritual.”
The Dev Anand Few Knew
While Dev Anand dazzled the world with his flamboyance, at home he was surprisingly austere. “His diet was simple Punjabi food, but without oil,” Sohaila said. “Though a table might be laid with non-veg dishes, he’d quietly ladle dal and spinach onto his plate and eat it with hot rotis. When he visited his sisters, they’d make sarson ka saag, makki ki roti, or aloo gobhi—he’d be in seventh heaven. And he didn’t drink, except to hold a glass of wine for form’s sake, sipping barely a drop.”
Sohaila’s narration, blending warmth, wit, and deep personal insight—as the niece of the Anand brothers and younger sister of filmmaker Shekhar Kapur—kept the audience hooked. She shared: “This production is very close to my heart because it’s not just history—it’s family. The Anand brothers were not only remarkable artists but extraordinary human beings. Through Anand Hi Anand, I want the audience to relive their magic, their struggles, their triumphs, and to remember why they remain so loved.”
