Afsar

Synopsis Has been Written by Mr Rais Asghar, My Uncle, on 20 August 2018 (Rashid Ashraf) AFSAR-1950 Though not a blast from the past, the golden era of Indian cinema, film "AFSAR" of 1950, starring Dev Anand, Suriya with Kanhaiya Lal, Zohra Sehgal etc. Director Chetan Anand, Producer Dev Anand, though a really enjoyable classical comedy deep-set in a historical reality, seems to have been lost from the memory of even really old film lovers just as it has actually been lost from prints as neither DVD or Internet is available anywhere in Pakistan or even in India. The story is skillfully set in the last era of British rule when after several historical land reforms in the subcontinent, the government faced the gigantic problem of assessing the actual incomes of landlords to net them in for state revenues. For purpose of direct assessments revenue officers were deputed, while for a larger number of indirect assessments, persons were sent and dispersed to villages in disguise of varying professions and for longer periods to secretly make their own assessment of on the spot realities and of actual sources and incomes. Dev Anand a smart but long unemployed city youth unaware of the fact that persons have been secretly deputed in disguise to villages, goes along with an illiterate quirky assistant and with no equipment, bare straw furniture and with not even the barest of medical knowledge goes to a village and sets up a dispensary as a last attempt at livelihood. Soon the ludicrous village simpletons of various sizes and shapes with rustic attires, accents and ways, a real entertainment to watch in the film, finding Dev Anand far removed from their lot, start spying on his activities, peeping in the dispensary through its falling windows and holes, and begin to spin up tales of him being of the disguised agents rumored to have been sent to asses incomes and their sources, and cook up their stories so convincingly that the owner of the entire village, the landlord, already under fear of losing some of his income and even property to the state, believes his men and their tales. He invites Dev Anand to his impressive haveli, gives him a reception and respect and starts discussions on some medical issues. However the unconvincing, naïve and evasive replies of Dev Anand on medicine further leads the landlord to believe that he is really the agent sent by the state to rope him and his vast income. He offers Dev Anand to stay at his haveli and Dev by now having r