Dev.D - Cast

Cast

• Abhay Deol as Dev Singh Dhillon
• Kalki Koechlin as Leni/Chandramukhi (Chanda)
• Mahi Gill as Parminder (Paro)
• Dibyendu Bhattacharya as Chunnilal
• Parakh Madan as Rasika
• Asim Sharma as Bhuvan (Paro's husband)
• Gurkirtan as Sattu (Dev's father)
• Satwant Kaur as Dev's mother
• Binnu Dhillon as Dev's brother
• Kuldeep Sharma as Manager Uncle (Paro's father)
• Sanjay Kumar as Leni's father
• Helen Jones as Leni's mother
• Bimal Barua as the Lawyer
• Aekansh Vats as Junior Dev
• Sasha Shetty as Junior Paro
• Anjum Batra as Sunil
• as the angry bus passenger

Dev :Dev.D is Devendra Singh Dhillon, the protagonist of the film. Son of a rich industrialist from Punjab, the sugar baron. He's brash, arrogant, ill-mannered, demanding, lusty, impulsive and yes, self destructive. Dev loses his chance of marrying his childhood sweetheart Paro due to a misunderstanding. After she gets married elsewhere, starts Dev’s path of self-pity and his emergence as a drug addict, alcoholic and chain smoker in Delhi now financed by a bed-ridden and guilt-ridden father. Through a pimp Chunni, he meets Chanda, a sex worker. She befriends a vulnerable Dev and gradually falls in love with him. Dev likes her too but his penchant for self-destruction prevents him and Chanda from truly getting together. Dev, in the meanwhile, finds lost love Paro. She visits him and washes and cleans for him but does not make herself available for his sexual use. A sexually rejected Dev indulges in further self-pity and substance abuse, kills seven in a hit-and-run, does not reach home before the death of his father, wastes himself and his family’s money and ends up, literally, on the road, narrowly escaping death by a drunk driver. He realizes life could be short; he already was on the lesson learning experience since some time, with all past memories of both Paro and Chanda. Dev tells Chanda how he never actually loved Paro and they live happily thereafter.

Paro : Paro is Parminder, a rustic Punjabi girl, who handles family and farms, household and its men with the same élan. She can be like a man when it needs to be and delicate like a woman when it needs to be. Paro is a free spirit riding high on life with nothing but an indestructible faith in her love for Dev. She is from a small family that has been close to Dev's family since childhood. She always had love for Dev, which was never visible in Dev. That faith is shattered in a major. A reason, why her happiness is cut short when Dev comes to know from Sunil that she sleeps with him. Dev easily accepts it, and rejects her. Paro seeks revenge in a different way, she accepts to marry an older man with children. Paro picks up the threads of her life and moves on with a lot of grit and dignity and she hopes Dev can do the same. Mahi’s Punjabi diction is very good, plus she makes a very good debut as quite an aggressive girl with emotional highlights.

Chanda/Lenni : Leni likes to live her life on the edge - a rich student with hyperactive hormones and a penchant for adventure. She comes across as a sweet, cute and innocent school going girl. After a devastating MMS scandal she's abandoned by her family and is forced into isolation. A mistake of trusting her boy-friend shatters her life completely. Nobody could understand her, not even her parents who just wanted to avoid any humility her act may cause them, hence going away from Delhi. After not bearing the sin, her father realized he had committed by watching her MMS, he decides to free himself and let Leni and his wife struggle. Leni's mother isn’t strong enough to manage her alone, sending her to his father's village. Eventually, Leni runs off, back to Delhi where it all started for her. As a runaway she finds shelter with Chunni a pimp. With great determination and inner strength she adopts an alter ego - Chanda. As Chanda she gets to be a high profile escort by night while Leni remains a college student by day. Chanda plays a fantasy girl; she is a different character every day. With coke in her head and money at her disposal, Leni/Chanda lives life on her own terms.