Guru Dutt

In his time, Guru Dutt was doomed to cater to an audience that only sought a happy escape from reality. They couldn’t care less about the depth, creativity and quality of the plot and characters. Even his closest friend had said that a young man like him shouldn’t have made depressing pictures. But his friend, like many others in the 50s, was too myopic to understand his genius. He was over-shadowed by the larger-than-life melodramas, with idealistic heroic characters and happy endings, made by his counterparts. He is now considered one of Bollywood’s greatest directors and actors. But, unfortunately, he didn’t live long enough to see himself become the legend that he was later dubbed to have been.

He made films that explored the vulnerability of the human nature and commented on the social system and the hypocrisy prevalent in the society. These themes are especially apparent in his most iconic film Pyaasa (1957) which told the beautifully melancholic tale of a poet, struggling to be acknowledged and accepted by the society, who falls in love with a prostitute. This film now adorns the list of 100 best films of all time by Time’s magazine. He showed to the world that Bollywood isn’t just about convenient plots, one-dimensional characters and dance numbers; that Bollywood could also be soulful poetry.

He was also responsible for certain technical advancements in the Indian film industry. He introduced the use of close-up shots with a 100 mm lens in Baazi (1951), which was a tribute to 40s Hollywood’s film noir. His film Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959) was the first film to use Cinemascope in India. Sadly, that film was a devastating box-office failure and turned out to be Dutt’s final venture as a director.

Kaagaz Ke Phool was Dutt’s most ambitious project and, in my opinion, his most brilliant, touching and visually stunning film. It aptly illustrated his mastery on creative use of mood and lighting with the ability to weave multiple thematic layers into a beautifully lyrical narrative. It is a semi-autobiographical tale of a famous director, who is stuck in an estranged marriage, falling in love with his muse (played by his real-life muse and love interest Waheeda Rehman) and his downward spiral there onwards. The film is strangely reflective of not just his past but his future and subsequent end too. He died alone in his room due to an overdose of alcohol and sleeping pills (many suspect suicide).

Finally I would like to wrap up with one his many memorable dialogues from Pyaasa that still echoes in the hearts of his fans-

“These smiling flowers, these fragrant gardens, this world filled... with glorious colours. The nectar intoxicates bees. What little have I to add to this splendor... a few tears, a few sighs.”