Guru Dutt
Page 14
In its review, the magazine Filmindia blasted Sailaab calling it a ‘picture for your worst enemy’ and ‘a perfect instrument of torture’ describing it as boring, stupid and incoherent. Sailaab is not discussed among the films of Guru Dutt as no print of the film is known to survive. So it can’t be critiqued like other popular films of Guru Dutt.
Sailaab was a disaster at the box office. A resounding flop which left both Mukul Roy and Geeta Dutt in financial doldrums. Guru Dutt practically disowned Sailaab. Geeta was pregnant and this financial disaster broke her heart. She lost so much money that she had to declare personal bankruptcy and insolvency.
This insolvency also meant that Geeta Dutt could never hold any shares in Guru Dutt Films Pvt. Ltd.
After the Sailaab disaster, Guru Dutt needed some good news soon. And that came with C.I.D.
Released on 17 August 1956, C.I.D. was immediately lapped up by the masses. It was an immensely entertaining crime thriller with Dev Anand playing a suave policeman on a mission to find the killers of a newspaper editor.
According to Raj Khosla, Guru Dutt never interfered in the shooting of C.I.D. but visually and thematically, the film maintained the typical Guru Dutt style of an urban crime caper.
Like all Guru Dutt productions, C.I.D. too was a musical triumph. O.P. Nayyar and lyricist Majrooh Sultanpuri created songs that have stood the test of time and are still hummable. These include ‘Boojh mera kya naam re’ sung by Shamshad Begum, ‘Ankhon hi ankhon mein ishara ho gaya’ sung by Geeta Dutt and Mohammed Rafi, the evergreen ‘Ae dil hai mushkil jeena yahan’ sung by Mohammed Rafi and picturised on Johnny Walker (hugely ‘inspired’ by ‘My Darling Clementine!’), ‘Leke pehla pehla pyar’ sung by Shamshad Begum, Asha Bhosle and Mohammed Rafi.
‘Kahin pe nigahen kahin pe nishana’ and ‘Jaata kahan hai deewane’ were picturised on the vamp, Waheeda Rehman. ‘Jaata kahan hai deewane’ had Geeta Dutt in raging form but the song does not find itself into the film. Reportedly, the Censor Board did not approve showing a C.I.D. officer being bewitched by a vamp! They also objected to the use of the word ‘fifi’ (‘Kuch mere dil mein fifi, kuch tere dil mein fifi’) as it was sounding too suggestive to them. However, Waheeda Rehman said in an interview that it was not the word ‘fifi’ that caused the problem. It was the line ‘Jaata kahan hai deewane, sab kuch yahan hai sanam’, which the Censor Board found suggestive. Decades later a remix version of the song was used in Anurag Kashyap’s Bombay Velvet picturised on Anushka Sharma. The magic of the composition was still intact.
47
MENTOR–PROTéGé
‘Although I was the heroine in C.I.D., it was Waheeda who was given a lot of importance because she was a Guru Dutt protégé.’
—Shakila
The second half of 1956 turned out to be exceptional for Guru Dutt. Professionally, C.I.D. became the highest grossing film of 1956, earning huge money for Guru Dutt’s company and a beaming Guru Dutt gifted Raj Khosla a Dodge convertible for making the smash hit. Khosla recalled, ‘He was a tremendously generous person. After C.I.D., one day he called me and just handed me the keys of a car. It was a Dodge convertible. He said: “Here it is, here’s your car.” “What’s this all about?” “It’s a present for you for making C.I.D.” And the beauty of it was, when I took the car home, I found the paperwork and everything was in my name. I did not have to bother to do anything further.’105
There had been celebrations on the personal front too. A month before C.I.D. was released, Guru Dutt’s second son, Arun, was born on 10 July 1956.
Raj Khosla never forgot the Calcutta premier of C.I.D. There were heavy rains so the flights from Bombay to Calcutta were cancelled. So Guru Dutt and the team decided to go by train. The starcast of C.I.D. including Dev Anand and Waheeda Rehman reached Calcutta after a forty-six-hour long train journey. When they reached the theatre, it was a full house. Guru Dutt watched the film for only twenty minutes and told Raj Khosla, ‘Come on, Raj, let’s go. You’ve made a super film, let’s celebrate.’ This was around 10 PM. The celebrations began in the hotel and went on till midnight.
But the next morning, Raj Khosla couldn’t find Guru in his hotel suite. He recalled, ‘I went looking for him everywhere, and there he was, lying fast asleep in the bathtub, fully dressed, bow tie and all. We had been drinking all night. He was very sweet.’106
However, Abrar Alvi remembered the Calcutta premiere in a different context. Hinting at the closeness of Guru Dutt and Waheeda Rehman, he said, ‘I think it was during the premiere of C.I.D., in Calcutta, that people started getting an inkling of the budding relationship.’107
The film magazines in Bombay had started to talk openly about Guru Dutt’s fondness for his new ‘discovery’. The people in Guru Dutt’s team had also realised that Guru Dutt, who was extremely short-tempered at the shootings and was ready to shout at anyone if proceedings did not go as he wished, became extremely patient when Waheeda Rehman was shooting.
Though Shakeela was the lead actress in the film, it was Waheeda Rehman who was talked about much in her supporting role of the golden-hearted vamp. Being a dancer, she handled the song sequences with amazing grace but her expressions look gauche and awkward for a sultry character. Raj Khosla intelligently focuses on her eyes to get the required effect. Infact during the shooting of C.I.D. the unit knew that Guru Dutt had shown great faith in the new girl Waheeda.
Even the lead actress of C.I.D., Shakila, had said, ‘Although I was the heroine in C.I.D., it was Waheeda who was given a lot of importance because she was a Guru Dutt protégé.’108 The film magazines had announced that impressed by Waheeda Rehman, Guru Dutt had given her a crucial role in his most ambitious project Pyaasa.
During C.I.D., Raj Khosla wasn’t happy with Waheeda’s work and attitude and had told Guru Dutt: ‘C.I.D. will be her last film.’ But after watching the rushes of the Pyaasa song ‘Jaane kya tune kahi’, Raj was surprised and said, ‘How is it possible? She is bad in my film and has done a good job here.’
In the book Conversations with Waheeda Rehman by Nasreen Munni Kabir,109 Waheeda says, ‘Guruduttji tried explaining: “Raj, she is very raw; you need to handle her right. May be she did the song well because she is a dancer. She knows how to give silent expressions. She needs a little guidance because she isn’t familiar with camera angles. When you use a 75 mm lens, she gets very stiff. You have to make her relax.”’
The new mentor-protégé relationship was already being talked about in the corridors of the film industry.
Section Twelve
DESTRUCTION OF A DREAM
1960–63
‘I’m not afraid of death but I’m scared for life.’
48
SCARED FOR LIFE
‘I find myself unable to stay in that house.’
—Guru Dutt
Waheeda Rehman was shooting in Mahabaleshwar that is around 150 kilometers from Lonavala. After her shoot got over, she came to the the Lonavala farmhouse one day with her sister and brother-in-law. Guru was very happy seeing her there. Everyone ate together. After spending some time at the farmhouse, they left for Bombay.
‘After they left I kept on thinking about the connection between Guru Dutt and Waheeda Rehman. From the day I came to Bombay I was hearing things about Waheeda and Guru,’ recalled Bimal Mitra.
Guru Dutt told him, ‘You don’t even meet many people so you have no clue about the extent of these rumours. But so many magazines are spreading rumours and trying to ruin my family life.’
‘Yes, I have heard some of these conversations,’ said Bimal Mitra.
‘But, you know, I always want to remain happy with my family. Of all the houses and buildings in Pali Hill, my home is the most beautiful. When I am in that house, I don’t feel I am in Bombay. That garden, that ambience— where else would I get it? But even then I find myself unable to stay in that house.’
It was true that even in the comfort and luxury, Guru Dutt would spar with pain. For Dutt, Bombay meant insomnia. He was s
leepless in his palatial house. Of late, things with Geeta had come to a point where he would regularly leave early morning from Pali Hill to his studio in Andheri.
The studio wouldn’t even be open by then. Ratan would unlock the door to his room, go inside and turn on the A.C. Guru Dutt would sit quietly on his chair for some time. There used to be absolute silence. After that he would enter the small adjoining chamber. This was his make-up room. A very small room with a nice bed. He would then close the door from inside and spend the whole day sleeping in that lonely, uninhabited isolation of the make-up room.
Finally, it was here that an unusual deep sleep used to come to Guru Dutt’s sleep-deprived eyes.
It was around 2 PM. Everyone was busy working on the script in Lonavala. Guru was sitting quietly in one corner of the room. Suddenly they heard a sound of thunder. Guru went up to the window. It was raining. Within moments, his face transformed and was filled with happiness. It was like a child’s face who was suddenly given his favourite candy. ‘Bimal Babu, it’s raining. I don’t feel like working now. Let’s go,’ Guru said excitedly.110
Guru Dutt pulled each person present in the room and went out for a drive. It was raining cats and dogs but Guru was ecstatic. He kept driving. Raindrops kept falling on the windscreen. But nothing worried Guru Dutt. He was happy soaking in the beautiful view of wheat fields, of green trees, of mountains and his car running at a smooth speed on the Bombay-Poona highway. While he was on his own trip, Bimal Mitra sitting in his car was terrified. He shouted, ‘Please drive slow!!!’
Guru laughed, ‘Why? Are you scared?’
The people sitting in his car that day remembered his joy on that rainy afternoon. They came back to the farm. Guru pulled out a few chairs and kept sitting on the verandah watching the rain for hours. ‘I have never seen anyone being so happy looking at rain,’ wrote Bimal Mitra.
He later told Bimal Mitra, ‘Bimal Babu, I’m not afraid of death but I’m scared for life.’
‘Scared of what?’
‘Fear, not for myself. In our our film business, we have made some money. We have an amount of 19–20 lakhs. But they can vanish in a moment.’
‘But why?’
‘Our film business is a kind of like gambling. King today…pauper tomorrow. So I am very scared. I have money, fame…I have a family. If all this vanishes one day? You might wonder why do I fear so much despite having so much wealth. I think it is the fear of being alive, the fear of life,’ said Guru Dutt.
It was as if Guru was pouring his heart out. Perhaps in his troubled mind, in a twisted way, life might have felt more difficult than death.
Or was he stating a deeper truth—it is harder to live than to die.
49
SAHIB BIBI AUR GHULAM
‘During the making of Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam, Geeta and Guru Dutt’s fights had increased.’
—Lalitha Lajmi
Finally the script of Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam was ready. This was the first time in Guru Dutt Films Pvt. Ltd that a complete script was ready before the shooting had even begun. Guru Dutt then asked Abrar Alvi to record the entire script in his voice on to a spool. Alvi went to a professional recording studio and recorded the complete script and dialogues with all the emotions and correct intonations. Guru Dutt began to listen to the dialogues repeatedly to imbibe their authentic Urdu flavour. He wanted the film to go on floors very soon.
Everyone expected Guru Dutt to direct the film. He wasn’t busy with any other project at the time. But Lalitha Lajmi says he wasn’t in the right frame of mind to take up that responsibility. ‘The tension in his personal life had increased many fold during Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam. So he gave the chance of direction to Abrar but he directed the songs.’111 The events that happened during the making of the film proved that his mental state was indeed fragile.
Abrar Alvi recalled an evening in Lonavala where Guru Dutt talked about his decision of not directing Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam. Abrar and actor Ram Singh who was present there tried to reason with him. But Guru Dutt replied, ‘The trouble is, Ram Singh, that not only do I know how to direct, I also know what it takes to direct. The mental agony, the emotional fatigue that I am going through is hardly the condition even for a master to be in while directing.’
Initially he thought about giving the directorial reins to Satyen Bose and later to Nitin Bose, but finally decided that his closest associate, writer Abrar Alvi, would direct the film. It was a superb opportunity for Alvi to prove himself as a film-maker. Abrar was sent to Calcutta to understand the Bengali milieu and the background of zamindars.
This was a story Guru Dutt was deeply involved with. Abrar Alvi knew that with great opportunity, a huge weight of expectations had also fallen on his shoulders.
It was now time for casting.
For the pivotal role of ‘Chhoti Bahu’, Guru Dutt zeroed in on the glamorous Chhaya Arya, the wife of photographer Jitendra Arya. The couple was based in London but Guru Dutt persuaded them to move to Bombay. The couple came to Bombay and a photoshoot was done with Chhaya Arya. She was also made to listen to the script recorded on tape and her dialogue delivery test was done too. But when the stills from the photoshoot arrived, Dutt was disappointed. Chhaya looked too urban with chiselled features. While Dutt wanted a face that had soft ‘motherly’ features yet appeared wanton in the complex role of Chhoti Bahu. It was particularly crushing for Chhaya who had shifted her base from London only for this film. But as a film-maker, Guru Dutt didn’t compromise. It was only the film that counted.
Shashi Kapoor was the first choice to play Bhootnath. But reportedly he turned up two and a half hours late. Guru Dutt was irritated and said, ‘If he’s late by almost three hours for a narration what will happen later?’ Then Biswajeet was offered the role but he backed out too. Finally, Guru Dutt himself became Bhootnath.
Waheeda Rehman, a prominent star by then, wanted to play Chhoti Bahu. She even did a look test and photoshoot wearing a Bengali sari. But the photographs did not please Guru Dutt. He felt Waheeda looked too young for the role that demanded a mature actress. ‘Tu to chuha lag rahi hai,’112 Guru Dutt told Waheeda laughingly, but offered her the role of the pesky Jaba who got to sing ‘Bhanwara bada nadan hai’ in the film.113
However, Abrar Alvi was of the opinion that Waheeda was miscast even for the role of Jaba. According to Alvi, Waheeda’s personality wasn’t suited for the role of a mischievous girl with a mercurial temperament. But Guru Dutt was keen on casting her, and Waheeda too consented despite being aware of the fact that this wasn’t the main heroine’s part but a second lead. Alvi says, ‘Meanwhile, the relationship between the two had blossomed and Guru Dutt was very possessive of her and kept directing her through the scenes.’114
Lalitha Lajmi says, ‘During the making of Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam, Geeta and Guru Dutt’s fights had increased. He was deeply involved with his film but Geeta used to suspect all the time. An artist needs space.’
So much has been written about the Guru Dutt-Waheeda Rehman association/alleged relationship, but Guru Dutt’s closest associate, Abrar Alvi, had himself spilled the beans in author Sathya Saran’s book, Ten Years with Guru Dutt: ‘Many of us in the unit felt that Waheeda was infinitely more suitable as a partner for Guru Dutt than his wife Geeta. Guru Dutt’s mother too shared our opinion…he would pack up shooting at any time without provocation, and make any excuse to be alone with her, even sending me away. Often he would say to me, “I do not know why I cannot overwhelm her…” And that from as private a man as he, was as good as a declaration of involvement.’
In Conversations with Waheeda Rehman by Nasreen Munni Kabir, Nasreen directly asks: ‘There continues to be much speculation about your relationship with him. Everyone assumed that you were in love with each other. Did that cause a scandal when you were making films with him?’
To this, Waheeda answers: ‘Because his death was a mystery—no one knew for sure whether it was a suicide or an accident—there was much curiosity. His death was such a s
hock to us all. He was only thirty-nine. He was young. The question everyone asked was: “Why did he have to die like that?” None of my film colleagues have ever asked me personal questions about our relationship. It was always other people and the press who were curious, and still are, almost sixty years later.
‘I know we’re public figures, but I strongly believe my private life should remain private. What ultimately matters and concerns the world is the work we leave behind,’ said Waheeda Rehman.
50
ART IMITATES LIFE
‘Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam is the story of our lives.’
—Geeta Dutt
1 January 1961, the shooting of Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam began with an auspicious muhurat ceremony. The first shot was being canned. Bimal Mitra was invited again from Calcutta to grace the momentous occasion. Guru Dutt had shaved his trademark moustache to play Bhootnath. He appeared super excited. Then there was Waheeda Rehman who was playing the character of the Bengali girl, Jaba. Waheeda was wearing a traditional Bengali sari. But there was another big surprise in store for everyone during the lunch. The crew at the Guru Dutt studios saw Guru Dutt, Geeta Dutt and Waheeda Rehman eating together.
A curious Bimal Mitra asked Geeta, ‘Hello! Good to see you. Never seen you in the studio before?’
‘The film was being launched today, so I came,’ replied Geeta.
Guru Dutt interrupted, ‘No, I have called Geeta. Waheeda didn’t know how to tie a Bengali style sari, so I asked Geeta to tell her.’
‘How am I looking?’ asked Waheeda.
‘Very good.’