| Dev Alahan | |||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coronation Street character | |||||||||||||||||
| Portrayed by | Jimmi Harkishin | ||||||||||||||||
| Introduced by | Jane MacNaught | ||||||||||||||||
| Duration | 1999— | ||||||||||||||||
| First appearance | 10 November 1999 | ||||||||||||||||
| Classification | Present; regular | ||||||||||||||||
| Spin-off appearances | "East Street" (2010) | ||||||||||||||||
| Profile | |||||||||||||||||
| Date of birth | 3 March 1964 | ||||||||||||||||
| Home | 7 Coronation Street | ||||||||||||||||
| Occupation | Businessman | ||||||||||||||||
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Devendra 'Dev' Alahan is a fictional character in the UK television ITV soap opera, Coronation Street. Portrayed by actor Jimmi Harkishin, the character first appeared onscreen during the episode airing on 10 November 1999.
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In December 2004, it was announced that Jimmi Harkishin had decided to take a break from Coronation Street following revelations about his private life. A spokesperson for Granada said Harkishin had been granted indefinite leave to sort out his "problems" and had their full support. Both Granada and Jimmi recognised that he has issues that he needed to sort out, he will be taking a break from the show while he seeks advice to deal with these problems.[1]
Amy Goskirk (Jayne Ashbourne), a former girlfriend, follows Dev to Weatherfield, claiming he had promised to marry her. He denies this, claiming she is a mad woman, so she says she is expecting his child and pretends to attempt suicide. Upon her return to the Rovers Return Inn with bandaged wrists, Dev exposes her lies by ripping off the bandages, revealing no cuts.
Some time later, Dev almost marries barmaid Geena Gregory (Jennifer James), but her mother is unhappy about this situation. She pays Karen McDonald (Suranne Jones) to set him up and they are caught together in the flat. Although she forgives him on that occasion, Geena and Dev later split and she gets together with Joe Carter (Jonathan Wrather).
Dev saves shopworker Sunita Parekh (Shobna Gulati) from an arranged marriage in India and gives her a safe haven in the flat above the shop. Sunita develops feelings for Dev but he just sees her as a friend, though they later become involved. His other girlfriends include cruise ship hairdresser Debs Brownlow (Gabrielle Glaister), and later Tracy Barlow (Kate Ford), who wrecks his flat after discovering he has no intention of marrying her. He also sleeps with Tracy's mother Deirdre, who he employs at the shop.
Dev later meets solicitor Maya Sharma (Sasha Behar), when on the rebound from Sunita, who chooses barman Ciaran McCarthy (Keith Duffy) over him. He sets up home with Maya, but when Sunita becomes seriously ill, Maya gets jealous of the amount of time he spends with Sunita and forces Dev to choose between them. Dev chooses Sunita, enraging Maya, and she smashes up the flat and sets Sunita up with an illegal immigration scam, and she is arrested at her wedding to Dev. Sunita is jailed but released when a taxi driver comes forward with information that implicates Maya. Maya is released on bail, and with murder in mind, she ties up Sunita and one by one sets fire to each of Dev's shops. When Dev arrives, she knocks him unconscious, and leaves them to die in the fire, but Ciaran McCarthy and Charlie Stubbs (Bill Ward) save them.
Dev's marriage to Sunita flows smoothly for a while, and the couple are overjoyed to discover they are having twins, which causes Dev to sell his share of cab firm Streetcars to Lloyd Mullaney (Craig Charles) to buy a house for his expanding family. However, during 2005, Sunita takes in Amber Kalirai (Nikki Patel), daughter of one of his employees who is ill in hospital. Dev is uncomfortable with Amber in the flat, and Sunita discovers that Dev is Amber's father. He and her mother had had an affair years ago. However, Amber is just the tip of the iceberg. Dev has several daughters by women he has employed in all his shops. Sunita also discovers that Dev is a grandfather too.
Sunita is devastated by the secret and that Dev is happy having so little contact with his daughters and promptly leaves him. She allows him to be present when she gives birth to their twins, Asha and Aadi. While Dev is overjoyed (especially as Aadi is his first son), Sunita is unable to forgive him. Eventually, in January 2006, Sunita and the twins leave Dev for good, moving into the house Dev bought for them. Dev does see the twins occasionally.
The following February, Amber (who now knows the truth about her parentage) comes to stay with Dev as her mother is moving to Finland with her new boyfriend but Amber wants to stay in Weatherfield. At first, Dev refuses to allow her to live with him, bitter about the part Amber played in his marriage breakdown, but eventually he thaws and allows her to move in.
On New Year's Eve 2007, Dev takes over from Bob as best man for Vernon Tomlin (Ian Reddington) at his wedding to Liz McDonald (Beverly Callard) and is later hit by Jim McDonald (Charles Lawson), in the process of Jim beating Vernon.
In Summer 2008, Dev is upset after conversations with Tony Gordon and Norris Cole make him realise he is not really successful and just a simple man running a chain of shops. To compensate, he quickly gets a membership to a new golf club to make himself feel better. Dev goes for a round of golf with Vernon and by chance, they strike up a conversation with Prem Mandal, who gives Vernon some golf pointers. The trio later have a drink together at the golf club. After Prem leaves, Dev tells Vernon that Prem is a very successful businessman who runs his own cleaning business.
Dev then enters into an affair with Prem's wife, Nina Mandal, (an ex-Bollywood star whom Dev once had a crush on), after going on a date with their friend, Lisa.[2][3][4]
In August 2008, Dev buys a flat in the newly-finished Victoria Court. Dev becomes increasingly dissatisfied with his affair with Nina when he realises that he is not the first man she has cheated on Prem with. Nina blackmails Dev by threatening to tell Prem if he tries to end the affair but Dev meets their daughter and found himself torn between Tara and Nina. Nina does not approve of Dev's attraction to Tara. Dev and Tara go on several dates despite Nina's disapproval and she threatens Dev that she will tell Prem about their affair. Dev, sick of Nina's threats, tells Prem himself, who wants nothing more to do with him. Unfortunately, Tara takes quite a shine to Dev and while he tries to discourage her, she interprets his actions as honourable. Eventually Dev visits Prem again and asks for his permission to date Tara but also Prem's promise that he won't tell Tara about Dev's affair with Nina. Dev asks this for Tara's sake and Prem agrees. Unfortunately, Tara tells Dev Nina had slept with her ex-boyfriend, but tells Tara that she is paranoid – her boyfriend wasn't really cheating on her.
In November 2008, he buys Jerry's Takeaway from Jerry Morton and renames it "Prima Doner". Amber is so angry when she discovers what her father has done – taken away her boyfriend's home and livelihood – that she tells Tara about Dev's affair with Nina. This causes her and Dev to split up briefly but they reconcile, with some help from Amber. Dev's uncle, Umed Alahan, arrives for a visit in March 2009 and begins to work in the corner shop.
In April 2009, barmaid Poppy Morales sees Dev and Tara's family friend Lisa Dalton together the night Tara dumps him, following an argument about her art gallery, and she leaves. However, Poppy tells Tara about Dev and Lisa's one-night-stand. Tara confronts Lisa about her betrayal and tells her not to visit either her or Dev again. When she asks Dev what he did the night she left, he tells her he stayed in, watching television so Tara plots revenge for his betrayal. As part of this, she convinces Dev to let him be photographed naked. On 11 May 2009, in front of a huge crowd in the Street for an unveiling on urban degradation, Dev proposes to Tara. However, she rejects him before unveiling a huge photo of him naked with the words LIAR printed on it. Dev is humiliated and Tara leaves soon after. In October 2009, Umed returns to India.
In November 2009, Dev begins taking golf lessons to try to be better than Steve McDonald. However, Steve is doing exactly the same thing. Dev begins to charming his instructor, Bernie Sayers (Jennifer Hennessy), although he notices her strange behaviour around Steve and she admits she is also giving him golf lessons. Dev and Bernie begin a brief relationship, which is tested when Dev discovers that ex-wife Sunita is engaged to a new man, Matt. Jealous, Dev is not happy and makes several poor attempts at trying to regain contact with his kids and Sunita. He apologises to Sunita and Matt and promises to act sensibly about the situation. However, his desire to win back his kids leads to Bernie breaking up with him when it is clear he wants Sunita back as well.
In January 2010, Dev is secretly pleased when Sunita tells him she has broken up with Matt. Realising that they are both meant to be together, Dev and Sunita agree to give their relationship another chance. They subsequently go on to buy Maria Connor (Samia Smith)'s house. In December 2010, after the tram crash Becky McDonald (Katherine Kelly) steals money from their safe while Dev is in hospital after Sunita was injured in the crash. Later that month Dev says he will be able to find out who stole the money on the CCTV camera but discovers the camera was damaged but he said he was lucky he had insurance. In February 2011, he attends Peter and Leanne's wedding renewal.
On 21 February, Owen Armstrong (Ian Puleston-Davies) turns up in the corner shop, which has nearly been repaired. He asks for payment, which Dev can not afford. Owen then threatens Dev, saying he will tear apart the corner shop if he is not paid. Dev returns home, where Sunita reveals they have no money in their savings account, and she demands an explanation. Dev then says that the corner shop was not insured, and that he has not paid the mortgage on his home, meaning he could lose it. Sunita asks to see the business accounts, to find that Dev's shops elsewhere have not been doing well due to various reasons e.g. roadworks and rival shops being opened. Sunita suggests they sell all of Dev's shops apart from the kebab shop and the corner shop on the Street. Dev then breaks down, saying it took years to build up his empire. Dev then goes to Steve, explaining that the stolen money would've paid for the corner shop's repairs. He then asks Steve for £5,000, but Steve says he can't as he also owes money to Owen, and to Lloyd for the Street Cars accounts.
In November, Dev and Sunita start to feel further financial pressure, especially with the return of Dev's daughter Amber, who has dropped out of University. They clash over the cost of Dev's golf when a huge bill arrives for the annual membership cost. This becomes worse when Dev takes Aadi to his golf with Steve and, in discovering he is very good, convinces Sunita that Aadi should have regular golf lessons, an expensive activity. Sunita agrees on the agreement Dev will also indulge the same money on both Amber and Asha.