his emotions and from the total mise-en-scene. Barua did not create Devdas - he was Devdas. So powerful was the impact of Pramathesh's portrayal on screen, so close it grew to his private life, that to the Bengali audience, Devdas was synonymous with the actor who played the character. By the time the film was released, Pramathesh became aware that he had contacted tuberculosis, and, drawn inescapably to the bottle like his screen parallel, wasted himself away slowly and surely, to die barely 15 years after he had lived the character of Devdas on screen. The social relevance of Devdas lies in the fact that it was the first film to place on celluloid the social ramifications of a man of high birth who moves away from his feudal, upper-class roots in rural Bengal to the colonial city of Calcutta during pre-World War II years. It tried to explore the inner pain of this man, torn between the pull he feels towards his village roots and his wish to run away to the city to escape from the tragic reality of a lost love. His wilful manner of moving towards self-destruction could be read as his casual indifference to the village that he once belonged to, a village he now responds to with mixed feelings. Before his death, he tries in vain to run away from an anonymous death in the unfeeling city by coming back to the village in one last desperate attempt to renew his lost ties. The harsh, heartless reality of the city has changed his perspective towards the village. He finally rejects the tempting illusions and fantasies the city once held for him. The city loses Devdas but the village too refuses to accept him even in his ignominious, humiliating death. Only two women - Parvati and Chandramu- khi - who operate like invisible, unwritten ‘guardians of conscience’ in the wreckage his life is reduced to, are left to grieve over his death. For Parvati, Devdas symbolises the adorable rebel from a feudal family who breaks rules only to come back to them in the end, proving that he is no rebel after all. For Chandramukhi, Devdas represents the generosity that characterises a prince who wills himself to self-destruction through excess. Devdas failed to offer social respectability to the two women in his life. Somewhere down the line, the audience forgot to draw the line between