India, Feb. 22 -- It is often said that heroes are remembered but legends never die. So it is with this Gurdaspur boy, whose roots were in Gharota village, equidistant from Pathankot and Gurdaspur, and now known for growing juicy kinnow fruit. This village was to see a bonny boy born into a progressive Punjabi family, with a lawyer for a father, in 1923. Now, I am trying to remember an old kid's rhyme and work out that he was born on Monday or Sunday? This is because of the 19th century rhyme, which predicted a child's personality by the day of birth. It went thus: Monday's child is fair of face, Tuesday's child is full of grace and so on. I recall the whole rhyme and come to the conclusion that he was born on Sunday. This is because I am convinced that he was born on Sunday. The rhyme assures me - The child that is born on Sabbath day is fair of face, full of grace, wise and gentle, good and gay! For this baby, who was named Dharamdev Pishorimal Anand, had all the graces attributed to a Sabbath-born child! Well, let's get on with the story, and forgive me for turning to nursery rhymes but old age is called second childhood. Anyway, I will stop rambling and get to the heart of the matter: why this sudden obsession with the childhood hero of millions who passed away in 2011? Well, it is so with the entire nation. All newspapers, social media, kitty parties and bars are suddenly talking of his charisma and all because of Vicky Lalwani's podcast with Mohan Churiwala, a Mumbai businessman, who was his closest fan, friend and confidant for some 45 years and was often described as a shadow to his of his brother, by Vijay Anand, who directed some of his best films, including a grand experiment in English and Hindi based on RK Narayan's novel: 'Guide'. Churiwala was just one of the millions of fans bewitched by the star's charisma, and that's how he approached him, only to become a close friend, manager of sorts, constant companion, honoured to be a shadow witness to his glory as well as taken aback by the new order and changing world when Amitabh Bachhan made him wait half an hour outside his home and till he decided to leave and not await further scrutiny. Churiwala's devotion is expressed in all sincerity when he says, "His name was Dev and he was no less than God!" He chokes several times as he talks about the star saying that he was a rare combination of deep professionalism and ethics as he would personally call his associates to confirm that their payments were made and his zest for his work was such that he was planning a new film shortly before he passed away. His esteem was such that Aamir Khan agreed to work for him for 'Awwal Number', on his father's advice, without seeing the script or inquiring what he would be paid. As one of his bewitched fans, this scribbler confesses that I had no regrets about the slap I received for slipping away from the Wellesley Road Officers Mess in Delhi with peers late evening to watch a propaganda film (Ek ke baad ek) on family planning being screened in the workers' quarters outside. My reply to my angry brother, asking, "Why did you go out?" was: "It was a Devanand film!" That somehow melted his heart too and all was forgotten. In the good old days, he formed a grand trinity with Raj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar even though they were rivals. Kapoor was lauded as a showman, Kumar admired as the tragedy king but it was Dev Anand who was loved most by the cinegoers in his strong heart-to-heart contact. It takes poet-screenplay writer and a profound witness to the era, Javed Akhtar, to describe this phenomenon. In a very interesting podcast, viewed by over seven lakh followers, Akhtar says: "Dev Sahib who towered on the screen from the 50s to the 70s, ruling the hearts of millions all over the world, was not just an actor or a star but a style statement." This is so because when the iconic, evergreen hero trendsetter raised the collar of his shirt, so did millions of fans. If he rolled his sleeves, so did the boys in schools and universities. If he wore a cap, it was soon a hot-sell in the market. Akhtar adds that for decades this one person ruled over fashion trends. Even his one missing tooth added to his persona. There was no beating his one-to-one contact with the masses....