Guru Dutt

by Yasser Usman

  Though Ravi made it sound simplistic, but a singer of Geeta Dutt’s calibre admitting she could not do justice to a difficult song sounds unreal today. It seems the decision wasn’t taken due to one single reason but a variety of personal as well as professional factors contributed towards it.

  The famous Urdu film magazine Shama95 reported, ‘Anguished by Guru Dutt unwillingness to let her sing for other producers combined by his liking for Waheeda Rehman, Geeta Dutt is facing severe depression affecting her personal as well as professional life.’

  O.P. Nayyar who produced many evergreen, chartbusters with Geeta had also veered towards Asha Bhosle. ‘Geeta said that the turning point in her singing came when O.P. Nayyar began weeding her out as we approached the 1960s. Even more bewildered did she feel by S.D. Burman following suit. She recalled how she had phoned O.P. How she had asked him as to where she had failed him for him no longer to be ringing and asking her to come for a recording.

  ‘Once she called in the middle of the night and said, “Nayyar saab, do you still recognize my voice? I am Geeta. Aap To Humein Bhool Hi Gaye!” I felt so sad and guilty. That time I could just give her some assurance but it was futile,’ recalled O.P Nayyar.96

  Geeta said that in Nayyar’s silence she got her answer.

  O.P. Nayyar said later, ‘As a singer, she [Asha Bhosle] sang all my songs with her heart and soul. However, Geeta Dutt’s voice modulation was far far better. It remains one of my greatest regrets that I phased out Geeta due to my emotional involvement with Asha, when it was Geeta who had introduced me to Guru Dutt. That’s when my career really took off.’97

  Geeta Dutt’s singing assignments were shrinking considerably year after year and like Guru Dutt, alcohol and sleeping pills had now become her favourite companions too. The gossips about Guru’s personal life had become a regular staple in the industry corridoors and it was affecting Geeta badly.

  She told writer Bimal Mitra, ‘The film magazines, film newspapers are the same. People used to propagate such spicy stories about Guru Dutt and an actress that I was ashamed to read them. I felt like committing suicide… someone wrote your husband was roaming around with a girl. They spent the night together in some hotel…such rumours. Earlier it was not easy to believe. But slowly I felt like believing everything…when I showed those stories to Guru, he would get angry and said I should not read these magazines.’

  Two tormented souls living under the same roof. Two talented artists unable to express themselves.

  And then a strange incident happened that further deteriorated the relationship.

  42

  YOU WIN SOME, YOU LOSE SOME

  ‘Director banna tha, director ban gaya; actor banna tha, actor ban gaya; picture achcha banana tha, achche bane. Paisa hai, sab kuch hai, par kuch bhi nahi raha.’

  —Guru Dutt

  Guru Dutt was in his studio when an envelope bearing his name arrived. Guruswamy had the permission of Guru Dutt to open all work-related envelopes and letters that came to the office. He opened the envelope and was shocked. Inside there was a letter signed by Waheeda Rehman. The letter was personal in nature. It said, ‘I want to talk to you about a very personal and crucial matter. Could you please come to Eros at 9 PM tomorrow? I will wait for you. It’s really important.’

  A shocked Guruswamy took the letter to Guru Dutt who was amused after reading it. He met Waheeda almost every day in the studio. They were shooting the film together. What was the need of writing a letter and asking him to meet at a crowded place like a theatre? The whole thing sounded strange to Guru Dutt. This couldn’t be Waheeda! It didn’t even look like her handwriting. Was it a prank? He was curious to know who had actually written the letter.

  He went near the designated place the next day at 9 PM, and waited there for a while but no one came. He immediately drove down to Geeta’s house in Santa Cruz and asked for Geeta. Geeta’s mother was shocked to see him so late. She told him that Geeta had come that afternoon but left early. Guru Dutt knew Geeta wasn’t at the Pali Hill home. He was furious.

  He realised it was Geeta who had sent the letter to verify her suspicions about Guru Dutt and Waheeda and hoping to catch Guru Dutt red-handed.

  That night, there was a major confrontation between Geeta and Guru Dutt and both said things they had never said to each other before. According to Abrar Alvi, ‘I think this was the first time that night after going home, that he confronted Geeta with the episode and, as he confessed to me later, raised his hand on her.’98

  This tumultuous incident cracked open the fault lines of the relationship.

  After this there was little left to hold on to.

  Cameraman V.K. Murthy was back in Bombay and taking him along, Guru Dutt decided to go to Baroda (in Gujarat) to hunt for shooting locations. It was there that Murthy realised that more than the location, it was Guru Dutt’s need to escape from the city and from his life which had brought them there.

  V.K. Murthy recalled a heartbreaking conversation.

  ‘Kaagaz Ke Phool upset him very much, though he didn’t express it to others…while scouting for locations in Baroda for Chaudhvin Ka Chand, he narrated me a line from Pyaasa: “Agar yeh duniya mujhe mil bhi jaye to kya hai.”

  ‘I asked him why he said that suddenly. “Mujhe waise hi lag raha hai. Dekho na, mujhe director banna tha, director ban gaya; actor banna tha, actor ban gaya; picture achcha banana tha, achche bane. Paisa hai, sab kuch hai, par kuch bhi nahi raha,”99 he told me.’100

  43

  THE PHENOMENAL COMEBACK

  ‘He would be struggling to come out of his shell and the surest way to throw him back into it was to ask him, “What’s ailing you? Come on! Get it off your chest.”’

  —Abrar Alvi

  Guru Dutt had bought a floor in Modern Studios in the Andheri area in Bombay. He renamed it as Guru Dutt Studios. The major portions of Chaudhvin Ka Chand were being shot in this studio.

  Film-making was his reverent refuge. The studio his temple. It was in studios, during shootings, that Guru Dutt appeared in control, sometimes shouting for the perfect shot, sometimes cheerfully acting out the scenes for his artists, giving the impression that everything was fine with him, as if he was living his life. No one understood if he truly felt joyous when he was shooting or if this was a facade. Whatever this feeling was, it would vanish by late evenings. Then he would drink with friends and associates, who would be busy having animated conversations with Dutt chipping in occasionally, smiling once in a while. But he would just be a lonely soul in a crowd.

  With alcohol there were always books too. When Guru used to sleep, his man Friday, Ratan, would keep a lot of books and a table lamp near his bed. Perhaps like alcohol, he was looking for some kind of an intoxication in books. Books in Hindi, Urdu, Sanskrit, English and Bengali. His nights were spent with whiskey and words printed on paper.

  As the night progressed, he would go silent, lost in his thoughts.

  ‘At times he would come to me late in the night. I knew something was weighing on his mind which he wanted to share with someone. He would be struggling to come out of his shell and the surest way to throw him back into it was to ask him, “What’s ailing you? Come on! Get it off your chest,”’ wrote Abrar Alvi101 about Guru Dutt’s condition.

  Guru Dutt was perhaps living inside a box that was so dark that no one could see his pain, so dark that even he could not see a way out of it.

  Guru Dutt’s younger brother, Devi Dutt, who was looking after the publicity of the film recalled, ‘Initially I was asked to popularise the ghazal “Chaudhvin ka chand ho tum ya aftab ho”. I was asked to frequent all the restaurants and Irani joints and to play the song on the jukebox. The ghazal became so popular that everyone used to enquire about the film! Even my friends used to wonder why I kept playing the song every time.’

  Director M. Sadiq’s detailing of the film’s milieu and cultural background was apt. It was the song sequences, directed by Guru Dutt himself which proved to be the highlights of t
he film. Guru Dutt looked good, Rehman dashing, Johhny Walker was back in his elements after his miscasting in Kaagaz Ke Phool and above all, Waheeda looked her best.

  With its music already topping the charts, Chaudhvin Ka Chand was released in June 1960.

  It was undoubtedly a deeply regressive story at every level. In an ideal world, such stories should not even work as a fantasy but the audience who had thrown the proverbial stones at Kaagaz Ke Phool, lapped up Chaudhvin Ka Chand. It went on to become a monstrous hit.

  Two months later, one of the most iconic films of Indian cinema, K. Asif’s magnum opus Mughal-e-Azam was released and the focus shifted to that film. But Chaudhvin Ka Chand continued running to packed houses even with Mughal-e-Azam playing in other theaters.

  Within just eight months of the box office disaster of Kaagaz Ke Phool, Guru Dutt had made a phenomenal comeback. This is an aspect of Guru Dutt that is seldom talked about. It says a lot about Dutt’s understanding of the commercial aspect of cinema. In his career, he produced just one flop film through his film production company: Kaagaz Ke Phool. And he never forgot that failure. The extraordinary success of Chaudhvin Ka Chand not just saved Guru Dutt from financial ruin but commercially it also went on to become Guru Dutt’s most successful film ever.

  The blockbuster established Waheeda Rehman as one of the top female stars of Hindi cinema. In Chaudhvin Ka Chand she looked ethereal, especially in the title song. This was the only film which potrayed a proper romance between Guru Dutt and Waheeda on screen and their chemistry was nothing short of sensual and magical. At that time, colour films had just started being made, and Guru Dutt decided to take the title song of the film, shoot it in colour and re-release it with new fanfare.

  ‘While reshooting the song in colour, they used hard, huge lights directly on my face, and my skin burnt; we had to shoot constantly with ice-packs being applied, and my eyes were red from all the heat. Later, we heard from the Censor Board that the song is very “hot!” and lascivious, which shocked Guru Dutt. He argued it was the same shot, the same movements from last time, only shot in colour! They replied that Waheeda’s eyes have turned red. He was bewildered, and said yes, but that happens while shooting, but what does it have to do with anything? They told him that it was very sensual and suggestive! He came back and had a big laugh about it, “Yeh Censor waale!”’ remembered Waheeda Rehman.

  44

  BAFFLED WITH LIFE

  ‘I sometimes wonder why he was so baffled with life!’

  —Ravi (music composer)

  The success of Chaudhvin Ka Chand was great news for his staff too who had stood by him in the worst of times. Their salaries came with a surprise bonus.

  Guru Dutt wanted to celebrate his comeback in ‘his city’. He decided to go to Calcutta for the premier of the film. But even in the midst of success and celebrations, he wasn’t able to hide his inner turmoil. Lalitha Lajmi says, ‘Though Chaudhvin Ka Chand was a big success, Guru Dutt’s personal life was really disturbed and it seemed he was going through full blown depression by then.’

  Waheeda Rehman says, ‘He would often lapse into spells of silence. While we’d all be gathered around chatting about the latest English films or whatever, he would be sitting by himself, totally lost and away from the world around him. We used to call to him, and he’d “wake” with a start. He’d be thinking about something else, very distracted.’

  Music director Ravi recalled, ‘He was a very generous man. When in Calcutta for the premiere of Chaudhvin Ka Chand, he would give away money so generously to his workers. But he was not keeping well and had started taking drugs.’102 At the premiere evening he came down from his room wearing a crumpled kurta-pyjama. The team requested him to wear something more formal and finally dressed him in a sherwani. But despite everyone’s request he was unable to speak on the premiere day. ‘He requested the public that since he was not well, he would not speak. The public was craving to just have a glimpse and he came on stage during the interval for a few minutes, that’s all,’ said Ravi.

  What came next was a promise from Guru Dutt that Ravi never forgot.

  ‘The next day, everyone gathered in my hotel room. He was very happy and said that the film was big hit and all of us deserved a prize. He turned to me and said that the music was a definite winner to make the film such a hit and told me to ask for anything I wanted. I made him promise that, and then asked for his bottle of drugs. He smiled and promised that he would give it to me and stop taking them.’

  Then they came back to Bombay and got busy with their respective lives. Ravi wondered, ‘When it came to his films, he always knew what was to be done next. He had his priorities right. I sometimes wonder why he was so baffled with life!’

  45

  SLEEPLESS NIGHTS

  ‘I think I’ll go mad!’

  —Guru Dutt

  For more than a month, Bimal Mitra was in Lonavla with Abrar Alvi working on the story and script of Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam. Mitra used to translate his novel and write the basic draft of the story. Then Abrar would take it over for the screenplay and dialogues. Guru Dutt often visited the farmhouse to see how the script was progressing. In his mind the rule was still clear—an artistic film after every commercial film. He was also happy that Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam was to be shot in Bengal.

  Sleep evaded him even at the quiet farmhouse. He would always want someone who could sit with him. It was a person called Ratan who would be there for him at all times. As soon as Guru Dutt would call Ratan he would have to appear and ask, ‘What can I get you sir?’ Dutt could ask for a cigarette or anything under the sun. Then there was the cook, John. He would prepare a new food menu for Guru Dutt daily. He would eat little but wanted the table to be full.

  The title of the book that Bimal Mitra wrote in Bangla about his experiences with Guru Dutt was Binidra, meaning ‘Sleepless’. This was one aspect of Guru Dutt that finds multiple mentions in the book. It was as if he never slept. They shared a good time together in Lonavala for almost one and a half months. Mitra used to be asleep by midnight. But not Guru. He would be up till 4–5 AM.

  One day Mitra asked, ‘What is the reason of your sleeplessness?’103

  Guru Dutt replied, ‘I don’t know! Some obscure things kept me awake.’

  ‘What obscure things?’

  ‘Conversations about my films, my son and some other vague things keep coming to my mind. Vague things. They really don’t mean anything.’

  ‘Before sleeping, why don’t you count from 1 to 100?’

  ‘I have done it all.’

  ‘Have you tried sleeping without a pillow?’

  ‘Yes I have.’

  ‘But if you don’t sleep the whole night, isn’t it painful the next day?’

  ‘Ab to aadat padh chuki hai,’104 answered Guru Dutt.

  Bimal Mitra writes, ‘I noticed Guru was very different from others. Despite not sleeping the entire night, he would appear calm and nonchalant. You couldn’t gauge what’s going on in his mind. But I could see the pain he was going through and the guilt that was growing in his body.’

  He would often say, ‘Bimal Babu, I think I’ll go mad!’

  Section Eleven

  BUILDING OF A DREAM

  1956–57

  ‘Maybe, Guru Dutt saw a muse in Waheeda.’

  46

  SAILAAB AND C.I.D.

  ‘Deep-seated within was a tremendous ambition…to be original and different.’

  —Dev Anand

  While working on C.I.D. and Pyaasa, Guru Dutt had also realised that success comes with its own sweet price. He was basically a creative person but as the head of his company he was also responsible to make it financially stable. The running cost of the company including the salaries of the staff was Rs 40,000 per month—a huge amount in those times. There were huge concerns about the inflow of the cash and income tax issues that used to tire his creative soul. He was a generous man who used to take great care of his staff.

  So much was
happening in Guru Dutt’s life and career. ‘Deep-seated within was a tremendous ambition to fight against the stereotyped, set conventionalism of the early fifties, to be original and different,’ remembered Dev Anand. While C.I.D. was nearing completion and Guru Dutt was readying for Pyaasa, another Guru Dutt-‘directed’ film released on 13 April 1956.

  The film Sailaab (‘Flood’) is always mentioned in Guru Dutt’s filmography but is not talked about much. The reason behind this is Sailaab wasn’t planned by Guru Dutt. It was a film produced by Geeta Dutt’s brother, Mukul Roy, who was its music director too. Geeta Dutt decided to help finance the project because of her brother. The film had Geeta Bali, Abhi Bhattacharya and Smriti Biswas in lead roles and the director was Ravindra Dave. During the shooting, Ravindra Dave developed some serious differences with Mukul Roy and left the film midway.

  It was a serious moment of crisis and a matter of great concern for Mukul Roy and Geeta. Guru Dutt was requested to take over and complete the film, which he graciously did. He was also credited as the director of Sailaab.