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The Hindu
09-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Hindu
Guru Dutt at 100: celebrating with his songs
Guru Dutt, one of Indian cinema's greatest artists, would have been 100 today (July 9). The famously troubled and sensitive maverick behind Pyaasa, Kaagaz Ke Phool and Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam, Dutt crafted sublime cinematic worlds steeped in longing and lyricism. While many of his films reflected a melancholic worldview, shaped in part by his own tragic life, Dutt's filmography embodied a range of styles, tones and emotional textures. In a short but remarkable directorial career, he experimented with genre and form, distilling a range of cinematic techniques through his uniquely poetic vision. Dutt was born Vasanth Kumar Shivashankar Padukone in 1925 in Bangalore, but grew up in Calcutta. As a young man, he trained at Uday Shankar's dance academy in Almora before beginning his film career as a choreographer with Prabhat Film Company. His directorial breakthrough came with Baazi (1951), starring Dev Anand. Dutt went on to direct several acclaimed films such as Aar-Paar (1954), Mr. & Mrs. '55 (1955), and Pyaasa (1957). His magnum opus, Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959), a classic to modern eyes, bombed at the box office, mirroring the fate of its disillusioned protagonist. Dutt continued to produce and act in films but never directed again. He was found dead in his Mumbai home on October 10, 1964, aged 39. One of Dutt's greatest gifts was his use of music and song choreography, ranging frome playful to the lonesome. He was married to legendary playback singer Geeta Dutt, and their personal and creative partnership brought forth many iconic moments in Hindi cinema. Songs like 'Waqt Ne Kiya', 'Babuji dheere chalna' and 'Jaane Kya Tune Kahi' remain standards of the era. Dutt collaborated with the leading composers of his time — S.D. Burman, Hemant Kumar — and, in discovering and giving wing to OP Nayyar, found a match for the formal mischief of his early work. On Dutt's centenary, here are some of his most enduring and evocative songs to celebrate with.. Tadbeer Se Bigdi Hui Taqdeer Bana Le (Baazi, 1951) Baazi, Dutt's directorial debut, bequeathed Bombay noir. The genre's interplay of light and shade—perfect for that city of chancers and chances—runs through this classic song. Voiced by Geeta Dutt and picturised on Geeta Bali and Dev Anand in a downstairs gambling den, the song, with its playful exhortations and charming composition, has resonated down the ages. Babuji Dheere Chalna (Aar-Paar, 1954) A noir-shaded comedy, and his second starring film, Aar-Paar featured Guru Dutt as a raffish, penniless taxi driver caught in a web of crime and romance. One of those ageless earworms, Babuji Dheere Chalna had a lovely teasing quality that informed the Geeta–O.P. Nayyar sound. While Nayyar adapted the tune from the Spanish-language Quizás, Quizás, Quizás, the song's suggestive moodiness is entirely its own. Sun Sun Sun Zalima (Aar-Paar, 1954): In this alliterative Rafi-Geeta Dutt duet, Kalu (Guru Dutt) is desperately trying to woo his employer's daughter, Nikki (Shyama). Composed by OP Nayyar, the song unfolds in a garage, where the duo flirt, spar and prance back and forth — a sequence that we'd later see play out in countless Bollywood romantic comedies. Preetam Aan Milo (Mr. & Mrs. 55, 1955) It's a classic airport scene. Anita (Madhubala) is racing to catch a glimpse of Preetam (Guru Dutt), who's set to fly off. Hurt, betrayal, longing hang heavy in the air. The flight takes off; Anita has just missed him. As she stands there, heart-broken, Geeta Dutt's achingly beautiful vocals take over. Originally a popular non-film track, composed by OP Nayyar and sung by CH Atma, it was reproduced for the film in Geeta Dutt's voice. Jaane Kya Tune Kahi (Pyaasa, 1957) Composed by SD Burman, with lyrics by Sahir Ludhianvi, the song was sung by Geeta Dutt. Waheeda Rehman traipses around a moonlit city at midnight, and an enchanted Guru Dutt follows her around. There's a hint of intrigue, some restraint and an undeniable spark. Jaane Kya... is one of the more sprightly musical sequences from Pyaasa. Jaane Woh Kaise Log The (Pyaasa, 1957) Perhaps this is the most enduring image of Vijay, the disillusioned poet, from Pyaasa. An anthem of the broken-hearted, the track remains iconic for SD Burman's delicate piano notes, Hemant Kumar's haunting vocals and Sahir Ludhianvi's rueful lyrics. Interestingly, a bit of the song is inspired by the second line of the national anthem of India. According to the book, S. D. Burman: The Prince-Musician by Anirudha Bhattacharjee and Balaji Vittal, the tune of the line 'Humne toh jab khushiya maangi' borrows subtly from the line 'Punjab Sindh Gujarat Maratha Dravid Utkal Banga' of the national anthem. Waqt Ne Kiya Kya Haseen Sitam (Kaagaz Ke Phool, 1959) A tragic, soulful lament, the song tugs at the bruised heart of Kaagaz Ke Phool. Penned by Kaifi Azmi and composed by SD Burman, it crystallised the lush, doomed romanticism that was Dutt's emotional signature. The regret and longing in the lyrics is complemented by VK Murthy's wondrous black-and-white photography and unforgettable lighting tricks. Na Jao Saiyan Chhuda Ke Baiyan (Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam, 1962) Composed by Hemant Kumar and sung by Geeta Dutt, this is a tipsy ballad of love and longing featuring Meena Kumari as the indomitable Chhoti bahu. Chhoti bahu is married to Chhote saheb (Rehman), a 19th century zamindar in Bengal, whose life revolves around drinking and debauchery. In her attempts at winning her husband's love, Chhoti bahu, too, turns to alcohol. Here, she implores her husband to not leave, or she'll break down.
India.com
08-07-2025
- Entertainment
- India.com
This actor worked in 22 movies, one flop ruined his career, became addicted to alcohol, died a mysterious death, he was...
If you are a Cinephile, you must be knowing, Guru Dutt wasn't just a filmmaker; he was poetry in motion. Born as Vasant Kumar Shivshankar Padukone on 9 July 1925, Dutt's cinematic world was layered with melancholy, lyrical storytelling, and emotional gravitas. He is remembered for his iconic films like 'Pyaasa', 'Kaagaz Ke Phool', and 'Chaudhvin Ka Chand' which it was more than just stories. They were mirrors reflecting societal decay and the fragile human soul. His journey from Vasant to Guru For those of you who don't know, he was raised in a Brahmin household in Karnataka, his early life was steeped in discipline, his father was a headmaster, and his mother was a teacher. A childhood accident changed his name, seen as a stroke of fate that would lead him toward greatness. After briefly joining Uday Shankar's dance academy in 1942, he drifted into jobs until fate brought him to Prabhat Film Company in Pune. There, he met Dev Anand, and soon after, made his directorial debut with 'Baazi' (1951). The personnel behind the professional While filming 'Baazi', Dutt met singer Geeta Roy, whom he married in 1953. Their union, however, was marred by rumours of his affair with actress Waheeda Rehman, creating tension at home. His increasing emotional instability and the commercial failure of 'Kaagaz Ke Phool' led him to alcoholism and despair. Despite directing only eight films, Guru Dutt's technical brilliance redefined Indian cinema. He introduced the 'Guru Dutt Shot', a stylised close-up that captured unspoken pain. His portrayal of women—from Gulabo in Pyaasa to Chhoti Bahu in Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam—broke stereotypes and brought nuance to female characters. His collaboration with talents like Waheeda Rehman, Johnny Walker, and cinematographer V.K. Murthy resulted in a legacy that transcended time. A star that burned too bright, too fast On 10 October 1964, at just 39, Guru Dutt was found dead under circumstances still debated, accidental or suicide. Either way, it was the final act of a life lived in artistic turmoil. Yet, like the shadows he so masterfully lit on screen, Dutt never really disappeared. His films were rediscovered across 13 countries in the 1970s and '80s. In 2004, the Indian government honoured him with a commemorative stamp.
Hindustan Times
06-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Hindustan Times
Guru Dutt at 100: A Wknd tribute to a tortured artist and his enduring art
On the morning of October 10, 1964, Guru Dutt was found dead in his flat in Bombay, lying on his bed in a crumpled kurta-pyjama. He had drunk a glass of pink liquid, sleeping pills crushed and dissolved in water. He had turned 39 in July. This was his third suicide attempt. His first was at the peak of his career, while directing and starring in Pyaasa (1957), a classic that is considered his greatest film. What was it that haunted this young man? Biographers have been trying to answer that question for decades. It was as if success drew him deeper into himself. In her book Guru Dutt: A Life in Cinema, Nasreen Munni Kabir quotes his brother, the filmmaker Atma Ram, as saying: 'He was quite social in his early days… had a very pleasant nature… Whether it was the success or his filmmaking, he became increasingly enclosed, more and more cut off.' His movies changed too. After early light-hearted releases such as Aar Paar (1954) and Mr & Mrs '55 (1955), both romantic comedies, came Pyaasa, a dark masterpiece about a poet rejected at every turn, who finds solace with a prostitute. This was followed by the even bleaker Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959), about a successful film director whose anguished personal life leads to his ruin. Stills from Dutt's first film, Baazi (1951; above) and his dark masterpiece, Pyaasa (1957; below). . The melancholy of his movies made him something of an outlier in the world of 1950s Hindi cinema, when directors such as Raj Kapoor and Mehboob Khan were telling hopeful stories that reflected the exuberance-amid-hardship of a newly independent India. Filmmakers such as Bimal Roy spotlit the darker side, with tales of systemic injustice, exploitation and caste. But Guru Dutt's stories didn't fit in here either. Because the despair he sketched with such artistry wasn't systemic, it was deeply personal. The descents into insomnia, depression and drink were the story of his life, told in real time. *** Guru Dutt was born in 1925, into a family from Mangalore. His father, Shivashankar Padukone, moved cities and jobs frequently, before settling in Calcutta in 1929, where he found work as a clerk. (Incidentally, Dutt's given name was Vasanth Padukone. His parents changed it, after a childhood accident, hoping to accord him better luck.) After his matriculation exam, Dutt stopped studying and began to work, to help keep the family afloat. At 16, he found a job as a telephone operator. The following year, hope dawned. Knowing how much he loved to dance, a relative helped him join Uday Shankar's academy, in 1942. Two years later, when the school shut, the relative, BB Benegal, an artist and his mother's cousin, stepped in again. He took Dutt to Poona and introduced him to Baburao Pai, chief executive at the pioneering Prabhat Film Company. Dutt was hired as a dance director. A still from Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959). It is hard to tell if fate was smiling or scheming at this point, but this is where he met Dev Anand, who was acting in the Prabhat film Hum Ek Hain in 1945. A dhobi mixed up their shirts, which is how the two met and became friends, the story goes. They grew so close that they made a promise to each other: Dev Anand would take Guru Dutt on as director in the first film he produced, and Dutt would sign the actor for the first movie he directed. Both would keep these promises. As Dev Anand wrote in his autobiography, Romancing with Life (2007): 'Guru Dutt and I were on the same wavelength. He wanted to make some great films, and I wanted to be a great actor, a great star... We saw masterpieces of outstanding filmmakers together… We were inseparable. Together we tramped and cycled the streets of Poona…' *** When his contract with Pai ended, in 1947, Dutt moved to Bombay. He would find no work of significance for almost a year. In those difficult days, he began to write a story titled Kashmakash (Conflict). This would later become Pyaasa. In 1950, he finally got a break, as filmmaker Gyan Mukherjee's assistant on the crime thriller Sangram (1950). In Mukherjee, an educated, talented man, Dutt also found a mentor. He would eventually dedicate Pyaasa to Mukherjee, who had died aged 47, the year before its release. Meanwhile, Dev Anand had not forgotten his promise. He invited his friend to direct a movie for his banner, Navketan. Dutt's first film, Baazi (1951) — starring Dev Anand, Kalpana Kartik and Geeta Bali, in a tale about an expert card player embroiled in the murky dealings of a nightclub that runs an illegal gambling den — was a hit. In his cap, scarf and cigarette, Dev Anand cut a rakish figure. As he wrote in his autobiography: 'I became a phenomenon after the release of Baazi…' In his next movie, Jaal (1952), true to his word, he signed Dev Anand to play the lead role: that of a ruthless smuggler who ensnares a perky young woman in Goa. Baaz (1953), Dutt's third film as director, was interesting for three reasons. It was his first starring role (he would go on to star in all his own films, and was in demand by other directors too). It was his first and only period drama. Set in 16th-century Malabar, he played a young prince who falls in love with a daring anti-Portuguese rebel (Geeta Bali). The film was also his first box-office failure; he never attempted the genre again. Instead, he stuck to urban stories about crime and love in Bombay. His next two, Aar Paar (1954) and Mr & Mrs '55 (1955), were runaway hits. A year later came CID, produced by Guru Dutt but helmed by his former assistant director, Raj Khosla. That too was a hit. With these three films, he and Khosla more or less invented Bombay noir, a genre in which the action shifts from plush nightclubs with cabaret dancers and cigarette girls to lamplit city streets and dingy eating houses. Crime is everywhere. The heroes are rakish rogues; the heroines are luminously beautiful. The sultry 'other woman' propels the plot: Geeta Bali as a club dancer in Baazi, Shakila in Aar Paar, and Waheeda Rehman as a gangster's moll in her first Hindi film, CID. *** Based on his later films, Dutt is perhaps the only filmmaker of his generation who can be called an auteur. His distinctive personal style reflected in his stories of unhappy and troubled artists, and in the intense visuals he created onscreen. These included the stunning shots of the Ajanta Studios, dominated by the towering garuda, in Kaagaz Ke Phool; and the black-and-white frames of Pyaasa, particularly the haunting Christ-like pose of the poet in the song Yeh Duniya Agar Mil Bhi Jaye. From the start, Dutt did marvellous and unexpected things with music too. Think of Waqt Ne Kiya from Kaagaz Ke Phool, with its panoramic shots of a studio floor complete with cranes, catwalks and cameras; the sequence remains a landmark in Hindi cinema. The songs in his films were used unusually, often as an extension of the dialogue, beginning without prelude or introductory music (as with Johnny Walker's Jane Kahan Mera Jigar Gaya Ji in Mr & Mrs '55). They moved the story forward, lifted the mood, and reflected sweeping emotion. Yet not even Mohammed Rafi's Sar Jo Tera Chakraye could lift the mood of Pyaasa. Dutt played Vijay, a disillusioned poet belittled by his brothers, spurned by publishers and cast aside by the woman he loves in favour of a rich husband. Perennially broke, he wanders the city aimlessly, finally finding solace in the love of a prostitute named Gulabo (Waheeda Rehman) who never stops believing in him. If the poet was devastated by failure, Dutt seemed living proof that success wasn't the answer either. The filmmaker was well-off, had moved into a larger flat in Bombay and bought farm land in Lonavala. None of it made him happy. A turbulent personal life may have contributed to his despondency. In 1953, he married the beautiful singer Geeta Roy, whom he met during the making of Baazi. By all accounts they were very much in love, but their marriage soon soured. She hated the rumours of a great love between him and Waheeda Rehman, and hated even more the idea that they might be true. *** Amid the turmoil, Dutt's next film, Kaagaz Ke Phool, with its tale of a successful film director's self-destructive slide into penury and alcoholism, was so dark and defeatist, it crashed at the box office. Even Waheeda Rehman didn't believe in it. In an interview with Nasreen Munni Kabir, she said: 'I thought the film was too sad… too heavy… I know there are many good moments in Kaagaz Ke Phool, but as a whole I don't think it worked.' Dutt, who set great store by commercial success, lost a little more of himself with this failure. He never directed a film again. *** Still, he had great hits. His production company, Guru Dutt Films, produced Chaudhvin Ka Chand in 1960, directed by M Sadiq. Set in Lucknow, it was a story of misunderstandings, sacrifice, duty and love, set in Muslim households. It swept the box office and was, by the numbers, the biggest hit of Dutt's career. Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam (1962), the last major film he produced, was directed by his long-time writer Abrar Alvi and, for many Guru Dutt fans, is second only to Pyaasa. The tale of the decay of a feudal zamindari family in turn-of-the-century Bengal features Dutt alongside Meena Kumari, who is magnificent in the role of a chhoti bahu who turns to alcohol in an attempt to win over her indifferent husband (Rehman). In 1963-64 alone, he played the lead in three family dramas made by other production houses: Bharosa, Bahurani and Sanjh Aur Savera. He had already tried to kill himself a second time by this point, swallowing 38 sleeping pills during the making of Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam in 1962. *** Through it all, he continued to love movie-making. Even after he stopped directing, in films such as Chaudhvin Ka Chand and Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam, he shot the songs. Waheeda Rehman has never been filmed more beautifully than in the song Chaudhvin Ka Chand Ho. *** What was it that haunted this young man? All these years on, his tormented genius remains an enigma. As Yasser Usman, author of the 2020 biography Guru Dutt: An Unfinished Story, puts it, 'He never gave interviews. No magazines ran cover stories on him. Whatever we know about him is through what others have said.' And yet, in a way, he had been telling his story all along; he had built his life, legacy and fandom around it. One can't help but think of Vijay's words in Pyaasa: 'Yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaye toh kya hai?' (Poonam Saxena is a writer and translator whose works include Dharmvir Bharati's iconic Gunahon ka Devta, Rahi Masoom Raza's Scene: 75 and Aleph's Greatest Hindi Stories Ever Told)
The Print
05-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Print
‘He never spoke about why he wanted to die'—Guru Dutt's sister broke her silence
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)
NDTV
05-07-2025
- Entertainment
- NDTV
The Making Of Pyaasa, The Guru Dutt Film That Changed Indian Cinema
This year marks the centenary of Guru Dutt, the legendary filmmaker-actor whose hauntingly poetic cinema still stirs hearts a century after his birth. Guru Dutt would have turned 100 on July 9, 2025. Yet he remains vividly alive in our collective memory through films that still resonate deeply. At the heart of his legacy is Pyaasa, his most haunting creation. While writing the book Guru Dutt An Unfinished Story, I discovered that Pyaasa, like much of his work, was deeply personal, drawn from his own rejections, loneliness, and creative yearning. The making of Pyaasa was not just cinematic history in the making, it was the story of a man revealing his soul. As the classic unfolded like a fever dream on screen, Guru Dutt's own life spiraled behind the scenes. Pyaasa was inspired by Guru Dutt's early days in Bombay as well as the struggles faced by his father. His father's lifelong ambition was to engage in creative writing but he could only become a clerk. This exasperation he felt manifested itself in a childhood marred with his bitterness, reclusion and constant fights in the house for Guru Dutt and his siblings. Guru Dutt's sister, the late artist Lalitha Lajmi had told me, "Yes, Pyaasa's theme was inspired by my father. Father was very creative and Dutt inherited my father's temperament. But it also drew from Guru Dutt's early struggles in Bombay." After working as a young choreographer and assistant director at Prabhat Film Company in Pune, 22-year-old Guru Dutt arrived in Bombay in the late 1940s but 1947 turned out to be a year of rejection and humiliating struggle for him. India had just achieved independence but was suffering the bloody aftermath of the Partition. Guru Dutt lived with his family in a small rented flat and was struggling to make ends meet. He had realised how difficult it was for a creative man to survive or to make a place in the cut-throat culture of the film industry. He went door to door of many film producers but couldn't get work for almost a year. In that frame of mind, he wrote the story about the frustrations and anguish of an artist and called it 'Kashmakash'(Conflict). The first draft of 'Kashmakash' was intensely personal. Guru Dutt poured his disillusionment, disappointment and resentment into the story and promised himself that he'll bring it on screen. A decade later, this story would become the blueprint of his most celebrated film Pyaasa. In the years that followed, Guru Dutt's fortunes began to shift. By 1956 Guru Dutt had secured his place as a promising filmmaker with four three successes as a director- Baazi (1951), Aar Paar (1954) and Mr & Mrs 55 (1956). Success had brought Guru Dutt the quintessential Bollywood dream: a bungalow in posh Pali Hill, a marriage and children with legendary singer Geeta Roy, and his own production house where he wore the hats of producer, director, and lead actor. Though he had achieved success riding on the popularity of romcoms and thrillers inspired from Hollywood, in his heart, he yearned to prove himself as a serious filmmaker. Finally, he chose the story he'd long yearned to tell. Pyaasa, which literally means 'the thirsty', ignited an unquenchable thirst for creative perfection that would ultimately consume him. For his most ambitious film yet, Guru Dutt wanted the best actor around. He wanted the 'tragedy king', the top star of the 1950s- Dilip Kumar. Dilip was known to take his craft extremely seriously and was a perfectionist to the core. He normally worked in one film at a time to give it his 100 per cent. This was exactly the kind of dedication Guru Dutt wanted from his Pyaasa hero. Guru went to meet Dilip Kumar and narrated the script of Pyaasa to him. Dilip Kumar agreed to do the film in principle and quoted his price of one-and-a-half-lakh rupees. Guru Dutt requested him to consider reducing the price. In reply, he was asked not to worry about the money. Now that Dilip Kumar was to take on the lead role, his loyal film distributors would take care of the finances. This perhaps was the point where Guru Dutt disagreed with him. Guru Dutt clearly told Dilip Kumar that he had a fixed team of distributors too and he had committed Pyaasa to them. At that time Dilip Kumar promised Guru Dutt that he would come for the shooting from the next day. The following day, all preparations were done for the muhurat shot. The entire unit of Pyaasa was waiting to welcome their star, Dilip Kumar. Hours passed but Kumar didn't arrive. Guru Dutt's production controller and confidante Guruswamy said, 'I myself had gone to fetch Dilip Saab. But he was not to be found at home.' Guru's brother, Devi Dutt recalled, 'He [Dilip Kumar] was to attend the mahurat at Kardar Studio. Also, [producer-director] B.R. Chopra's office was in the same compound. Dilip Saab went there to meet him. Dilip Saab sat there discussing the script of Chopra Saab's Naya Daur as the mahurat time (of Pyaasa) slipped by. Guru Dutt sent for him. Dilip Saab said he'd be there in ten minutes.' But even then Dilip Kumar did not turn up. Around lunch time, Guru Dutt sent for two bees. By 3 pm he had decided to play the protagonist himself and took the first shot- a close-up shot of a bee thirsty for nectar but a man passing by crushes the innocent life under his foot. It's true that had Dilip Kumar turned up on that fateful day, Pyaasa would have been a very different film. But the way in which Guru Dutt played the role of Vijay, it is difficult to imagine anyone except him in that role now. He gave it his everything. Guru Dutt became Vijay, the heartbroken poet. Guru Dutt had always underestimated himself as an actor. In all his films where he had played the lead role, he was always the reluctant second or third choice. But the audacious move by Guru Dutt to take on the role that Dilip Kumar refused paid off and it became 'one of Bollywood's all-time greatest performances'. With himself in the lead male role, the quest for the female lead started. The casting of the female leads for Pyaasa went through many changes. Initially Madhubala was considered to play the role that finally went to Mala Sinha. Meenu Mumtaz was signed as the streetwalker's friend while the song 'Jaane kya tune kahi' was to be picturised on Kumkum. However, in the final cut, both Meenu Mumtaz and Kumkum were out. A relatively new actress, Waheeda Rehman, was finalized to play the lead role of the prostitute, Gulabo. It was Guru himself who had introduced Waheeda in Hindi films with his last production C.I.D directed by Raj Khosla. Initially Guru Dutt's team wasn't happy with her casting. It was a complex role that required a mature and seasoned actress and Waheeda was just one film old. But Dutt was certain, captivated by the young South Indian's quiet new mentor-protege relationship was already being talked about in the corridors of the film industry. As Pyaasa took shape, Guru Dutt's personal life began to unravel. Once a celebrated love story between star singer Geeta Roy and the struggling filmmaker, their relationship changed after Dutt's success. Though Geeta's voice graced all his films and contributed to his rise, she often felt overshadowed and underappreciated. Lalitha Lajmi told me, "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, the big house they had built. With every successful film Guru achieved fame while Geeta felt that she has been denied her share of fame." Frequent arguments took their toll, and rumors of Guru Dutt's closeness with Waheeda Rehman only deepened the rift between him and Geeta. Guru Dutt initially planned to shoot the red-light area scenes on location in Calcutta but shifted to a studio due to security concerns. People close to Guru Dutt have gone on record to say that he did not believe in shooting a film with a bound script or strict planning of shooting schedules. He was rather fond of 'creating' the film as it took shape on the sets, making a lot of changes in the script and dialogues. Pyaasa was no different. Guru Dutt shot the film in random order and it is said that the raw stock Guru Dutt used for any one film could have finished three films. He would shoot and shoot and was unsure about what he really wanted in a particular scene. Even with himself, for the famous climax sequence in Pyaasa, he shot one-hundred and four takes! He kept forgetting the dialogues as it was a very lengthy shot, but he wanted it just would shout and get bad-tempered when things did not go right. Before Pyaasa, he would scrap only one or two shots of a film, rather than entire sequences. But beginning from Pyaasa, the scrapping and reshooting had reached worrying new levels. People close to him noticed this change. Many believed his personal turmoil was wearing him down, but it was also clear that with his dream project Pyaasa, Guru Dutt was determined to leave no stone unturned in his pursuit of perfection. Sleep evaded him. The misuse of and dependence on alcohol had begun. At his worst, he started experimenting with sleeping pills. Remembering those days, Lalitha Lajmi told this author, "The kind of serious films he was making had also affected him. His personality had changed. He had become more he used to call me saying he wants to talk about something. But whenever I went to meet him, he never really confided. He was disturbed." Guru Dutt gave his all to make Pyaasa- his sleep, his dreams, and the memories of his childhood. The dance of light and shadow, the echo of Baul singers from his Bengal childhood, and the grace honed at Uday Shankar's legendary dance school, all found their way, in one form or another, into the poetry of Pyaasa. Sahir's lyrics were brought to life in songs like 'Jaane woh kaise log the jinke', 'Jinhe naaz hai Hind par' and 'Yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaaye', composed hauntingly by S D Burman. The song sequences were replete with symbolisms that have been repeatedly decoded over the years. The shot-taking practices prevalent in Indian cinema at that time were mid-shots and long shots. Guru Dutt was perhaps the first to use an establishing shot followed by close-ups in his films. He was obsessed with close-ups and extensively used long focal-length lenses (75 mm and 100 mm). Even after so many decades, those close-up shots stand out. His brother Devi Dutt recalled, 'The close-up shots with a 100 mm lens in his films, which became known as the "Guru Dutt shot", the masterful play with light and even his melancholia soaked frames, still enthrall cineastes.' As an actor too, Guru Dutt gave his soul to the role of the tormented poet Vijay. He believed that the eyes were the most expressive part of a person and they spoke more than anything else. When you recall any famous Guru Dutt photograph, or any of his scenes from a film, you will instantly remember his intense eyes. But a fact often overlooked is that Guru Dutt used to wear thick eyeglasses due to poor eyesight. He may have not been able to see the camera clearly without glasses but he worked really hard to express through his eyes. And the magic was there for all to see. The rejection of the world and life itself was a prominent theme of Pyaasa. Drawing inspiration and reliving every trial and tribulation in his life for the script, Guru Dutt literally put his soul into the film. The unfading memory of the Pyaasa song 'Ye duniya agar mil bhi jaaye to kya hai', which had Guru Dutt in a posture that symbolises crucifixion is haunting to say the least, as markedly his state of mind was never the same after Pyaasa. It was as if the characters of his stories and real life merged into one. The original title of the story that became Pyaasa- 'Kashmakash'-also appears in a very important verse by lyricist Sahir. In the film it describes the poet's frustration with the events happening in his life. But looking back, it can be said that the verse also applies to Guru Dutt's state of mind in those days. It was as if his soul was bared. Tang aa chuke hain kashmakash-e-zindagi se hum (I am weary of this troubled life, weary of this troubled existence) Thukra na dein jahaan ko kahin be-dili se hum (In my grief, may I not reject the entire world?) Hum gham zadaa hai laayein kahaan se khushi ke geet (How can I sing of joy when I live in pain?) Denge wo hi jo paayenge is zindagi se hum (I can only return to life what life itself offers me) And then, as if following the strain 'Thukra na dein jahaan ko kahin be-dili se hum' (In my grief, may I not reject the entire world?) Guru Dutt had done the unthinkable. Just when Pyaasa was nearing completion, came the news that he had attempted suicide. 'It was the year 1956 when the thirty-one-year-old Guru Dutt ingested a large dose of opium. Lalitha remembered, 'I knew he was in turmoil. They had serious the news came we were stunned. We rushed to Pali Hill. I remember his body had turned cold and his vision had blurred. He kept repeating, "I'm becoming blind, I can't see." We took him to the hospital. He was saved.' But what had gone so wrong that he wanted to take his own life? The people close to Guru Dutt could never really know if the attempt to end his life was due to a mood disorder, mental health issue or some philosophical reason. Neither did they seek professional help after he was discharged from the hospital. With scarce conversations around a socially stigmatised topic and big money riding on his dream project Pyaasa, Guru Dutt found little time to address what happened. The completed film was shown to distributors it too dark and urged for lighter moments. To soften the tone, the romantic song ' Hum aapki aankhon mein ' was added as a dream sequence, the only 'dream song' in his entire body of work. On 22 February 1957, Pyaasa was premiered at Bombay's Minerva theatre. The humane theme of the film connected with audiences and the film struck gold at the box office. The commercial success of Pyaasa went far beyond Guru Dutt's own expectations. No one had expected such an intense and serious film from Guru Dutt who was dabbling in romantic comedies and thrillers until then. It is to be said that the lyrical fluidity of Pyaasa defies Guru Dutt's indecisiveness or temperamental and erratic ways of shooting. The screenplay writer Abrar Alvi was always on sets and his fluid screenplay kept the pace alive throughout. The film even today flows effortlessly. Pyaasa dared to question a society that dismissed sensitivity and art in favor of money and power. It asked what matters more: art or ambition, integrity or money? Artistic yet entertaining and well within the mainstream format. This is perhaps what made Pyaasa everlastingly relevant. Unfortunately, it did not win any of the prestigious Filmfare awards for 1957. The award ceremony was dominated by Naya Daur and Mother India. But Pyaasa stood the test of time and went on to capture a place in TIME magazine's coveted list of 'All-TIME 100 Movies', and has achieved the status of a cult film the world over.
