‘He never spoke about why he wanted to die'—Guru Dutt's sister broke her silence

The Print

a day ago

We spoke first about the fear and loneliness the pandemic had wrapped around us all. 'I have a son who lives in Europe,' she said softly. 'Do you think I'll ever see him again?' I didn't know her, didn't know her son, but I told her I believed she would. That the world, somehow, would find its way back, as it always has. Our talk stretched beyond 15 minutes. At the very end, she hesitated and said, 'I will talk about Guru… but you must promise me one thing: don't ask about…' She mentioned a deeply personal subject, and I promised I wouldn't press her on it. I kept that promise.
The Covid-19 lockdown had just started when I decided to call Lalita Lajmi, the artist who was also Guru Dutt's sister. I told her that I was in the process of writing a book on her brother, the legendary filmmaker and actor. She was 88 then, and I could hear the hesitation in her voice right away. A stranger calling, asking her to share memories of someone so precious. Our first conversation felt formal and a bit distant, ending at a tentative promise that she would call back. As a biographer familiar with such delicate beginnings, I knew well that sometimes a promise is just a gentle way of saying no.
The story of Guru and Geeta
That one call opened the door to many more conversations. After the lockdown, I frequently visited her modest flat in Andheri, Mumbai, where she lived alone, supported by a caretaker. She welcomed me with Saraswat lunches and tender, unfiltered memories of Guru and Geeta Dutt. I had already done much research on Guru Dutt's cinema, but I longed to understand the man who created Pyaasa (1957) and Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959) while wrestling with shadows so deep he tried to end his own life repeatedly. And I wanted to understand why Geeta Dutt, a singer and brilliant star in her own right, was often absent from previous stories about her husband. Through Lalita Lajmi's words, the story of Guru and Geeta unfolded. Raw, honest, and heartbreakingly human.
'We had a disturbed childhood…Financially, it was a difficult life,' Lajmi told me. 'I was seven years younger than Guru Dutt. Our family lived in a tiny two-bedroom flat in Calcutta. There were our parents, my maternal grandmother and five of us kids. The flat was so small that we kept colliding into one another. Our father did not believe in success. He believed in poetry, which is not enough to survive. My parents would often have heated arguments. I looked up to our elder brother, Guru Dutt.' Lajmi witnessed Guru and Geeta's life closely, and I was quietly drawn to the stories she narrated, the moments she remembered with care.
Guru Dutt was sensitive, deeply observant, and remarkably creative even as a child. His early training in classical dance at Uday Shankar's legendary institute in Almora shaped his sense of rhythm and visual expression. He began his film journey as a choreographer at Prabhat Film Company in Pune, working on Lakharani (1945). But when the studio fell on hard times, the late 1940s became a period of relentless struggle for him – marked by disappointment, rejection, and a quiet ache that left lasting scars. 'It was during this bleak phase, shaped by his father's own disillusionments and his personal setbacks, that he conceived a story idea called Kashmakash,' recalled Lajmi. This story, born of inner conflict, would become the soul of Pyaasa a decade later.
The story of the star singer Geeta Roy and the struggling filmmaker Guru Dutt finding love in Tinseltown was a hot topic at the time. Lajmi witnessed their romance from the early days till the very end. 'All through their courtship days, I was their courier and chaperone,' Lajmi remembered. They took little Lalita wherever they went, and would exchange letters through her, too. 'We all loved Geeta. Lovely, wonderful Bengali lady. She used to come in a big car, but she was very humble, very good at heart.' They married in 1953, shortly after Guru Dutt's successful directorial debut, Baazi (1951).
Geeta Dutt was the lead singer for all her husband's movies until Kaagaz Ke Phool. From the playful charm of Babuji Dheere Chalna, Ye lo Main Haari Piya, Jaane Kahan Mera Jigar Gaya Ji, to the haunting depth of Aaj Sajan Mohe Ang Laga Lo, and Waqt Ne Kiya Kya Haseen Sitam, her songs became inseparable from Guru Dutt's cinema. Her immense talent was often seen as a cornerstone of his early successes, including the timeless Pyaasa and Kaagaz Ke Phool.
But in their personal lives, the happiness didn't last. 'They were deeply in love. But there was one major conflict in their relationship. Guru had promised that Geeta would continue singing even after their marriage. But now he wanted her to sing only in the films produced by Guru Dutt. He wanted Geeta to take care of the family, and the big house they had built. With every successful film, Guru achieved fame while Geeta felt that she had been denied her share of fame,' Lajmi told me. According to her, it was Guru's need for control that fractured his relationship with Geeta.
Also read: Guru Dutt built Bollywood's most unlikely dream team—bus conductor, unknown writer, dancer
Guru Dutt's growing turmoil
Those close to Guru Dutt recall a man haunted by insomnia and inner unrest. Sleep evaded him. His sister later attributed his struggles to a deeper, undiagnosed pain. Lalita Lajmi also felt his turmoil grew with the kind of intense, emotional films he began making, far removed from the lighter thrillers and romances of his early days. 'The kind of serious films he was making had also affected him. His personality had changed. He had become more reclusive…sometimes he used to call me, saying he wanted to talk about something. But whenever I went to meet him, he never really confided,' she said.
The emotional toll affected Guru Dutt as he turned increasingly to alcohol and sleeping pills. During the making of Pyaasa, he attempted suicide for the first time but was saved. Pyaasa turned out to be a major critical and commercial success and elevated his stature as a filmmaker. At Guru Dutt Films, he set a simple rule of striking a careful balance – follow each artistic gamble like Pyaasa with bankable commercial ventures like C.I.D. (1956) to keep the company thriving. But Pyaasa changed everything. Buoyed by its triumph, Guru Dutt skipped the 'safe rule' and flew straight into his most personal, expensive, and daring film, Kaagaz Ke Phool. The ambitious quasi-autobiographical film, now considered a classic, was the biggest failure of Guru Dutt's career. It broke his heart, and he officially never directed a film again. Though he produced his most successful film, Chaudhvin Ka Chand (1960), soon after, the sleepless nights and inner turmoil only deepened.
The couple built a beautiful bungalow in Bombay's upscale Pali Hill. But as arguments grew more frequent, Geeta began to believe the house was haunted and that they could not be happy there. 'Someone had suggested to her that the major rift in their relationship began after they shifted to that bungalow. There was a particular tree in the house, and she said there's a ghost who lives in that tree, who is bringing bad omen and ruining their marriage,' Lajmi told me. According to her, it was Geeta who said that they should leave the bungalow and live somewhere else. The bungalow was Guru Dutt's dream house, one he had aspired to own since his early days in the city. One morning, he called in workers and told them to demolish it. 'He loved that house, and he was heartbroken when it was demolished. Their lives could really never come back on track after that,' Lajmi said.
By the time Sahib, Bibi Aur Ghulam (1962) was in production, Guru and Geeta Dutt had realised that their marriage was not working. 'Geeta Dutt, too, had taken to alcohol and sleeping pills majorly,' recalled Lajmi. Guru Dutt tried to end his life again. 'The second time, it was an overdose of sleeping pills…His body had gone completely cold. He was unconscious for three days. Then, on the fourth day, we heard his scream. The first person he asked for was Geeta. It was strange because their relationship was going through hell. They were thinking of separation, but in those moments, he wanted Geeta to be near him. I think they deeply loved each other despite their differences,' she said.
Also read: Guru Dutt turned melancholia into art. He was 'lost in filmmaking, lost to life'
'He never said anything'
Lajmi told me that her brother never spoke about why he wanted to die. 'Sometimes, he used to call me. I would rush to him even in the middle of the night. But he would sit quietly, not say anything. I felt he wanted to say something. But he never did. Never.' During my multiple conversations with Lajmi for my book, Guru Dutt: An Unfinished Story (2021), there were many such moments when she was moved by her memories. She confessed to carrying a quiet guilt. She believed she hadn't done enough for her brother, who she later understood was silently crying for help. She sensed it in the recurring themes of his films – the loneliness, the longing, the quiet despair woven between the frames.
Guru Dutt was found dead in his room on the morning of 10 October 1964. Lalita Lajmi had vivid memories of that morning. 'He was dead, his right arm out, half-opened eyes, an unfinished book, and the right leg folded as if to get up from his bed. There was some coloured liquid in the glass.' The coloured liquid was crushed sleeping pills dissolved in water.
'What is the first image that comes to mind when you think about your brother?' I asked her. She went silent for a few moments, her face acquiring a deeply melancholic look, as if travelling back in time. 'For years, I had dreams of Guru Dutt lying on his bed with his eyes half-open and an unfinished book. I try to wake him up. 'Get up! Get up! Your admirers are waiting below the balcony!' I keep looking at his face. He looks like he is in a deep sleep. I keep waiting for him to get up but he is dead. The moment in time is frozen for me forever,' she replied.
In the end, it is those memories and his cinema that truly live on.
Yasser Usman is an award-winning journalist, editor, and Bollywood biographer. His latest biography, 'Guru Dutt: An Unfinished Story', was published in 2021. His X handle is @yasser_aks. Views are personal.
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)