Obviously, there are bound to be differences (in characters) like Ritesh, Taposh and Roby...but then overlooking those factors... would you still say you find TL's story totally unrelated to the story of Devdas...
Read on- š
The whole bengali backdrop
Both guy and girl were childhood best friends
The two warring families staying opposite to each other
Girl from the poorer house
Guy from the richer family
Guy's father very stern and worried about Khaandaan (not too worried about son's feelings...i.e. son and father have sort of an estranged relationship)
Guy out of desh for long time because his father wants him to have a foreign education...
Girl waiting for the guy to come back (all the while having hopes in her heart that he would come back and ask for her hand)
Guy comes back (he does love the girl) but screws it up due to his own doings/misdoings (in devdas' case ego, in this case Anu thinking he loves someone else)
Girl and girl's mother insulted in guy's house
Girl's mother vows to get her daughter married in rich house ASAP...
Guy himself suffers due to all of this...(In devdas' case becomes drunk and resorts to chandramukhi.... here Anu gets admitted in the mental asylum -> well we think so as of now...)
I think Ekta had stated somewhere that TL was based on a lot of her own childhood feelings/incidents/sentiments etc... so Ekta ji... was your story as dramatic as this... š