Guru Dutt
This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. |
Contents |
A profile
Avijit Ghosh, July 6, 2025: The Times of India
Songs are bookmarks of mainstream Hindi films. Long after a movie disappears from theatres and memories, they suddenly waft over a cabbie’s FM radio or emerge on an algorithm-driven app. They become a movie’s reference point, keeping them alive. In Guru Dutt films, the songs are more eloquent. Works of care and empathy, they not only take you on a guided tour of his art and aesthetics, but also offer a peep into his emotional world.
The songs also carry his signature. Dutt, who spent his early years in Kolkata, loved dance, having trained at visionary dancer-choreographer Uday Shankar’s centre in Almora and performed with his troupe. The films he made had a dance director but his contribution to their picturisation is well-acknowledged. “He was the first to make the songs visually interesting... he gave them much thought, he would spend nights thinking of song situations,” lyricist Majrooh Sultanpuri is quoted as saying in Yasser Usman’s biography of the actor-producer-director.
Tight close-ups, interplay of light and shade, symmetry of movement — Dutt, in tandem with cinematographer VK Murthy, produced a bouquet of soundtracks that feel contemporary even today, both visually and musically. They also provide meanings beyond the frame. Here are four songs, all from black-andwhite movies directed by him, that offer a glimpse into his craft:
HOON ABHI MAIN JAWAAN AE DIL
FILM Aar Paar, 1954 | MUSIC OP Nayyar | LYRICS Majrooh Sultanpuri | SINGER Geeta Dutt
In ‘Aar Paar’, Dutt lensed songs in the unlikeliest of places: a construction site (‘ Kabhi aar kabhi paar ’), a taxi (‘ Ee lo main haari piya ’), a garage (‘ Sun sun zalima ’). ‘ Hoon abhi main jawan ae dil ’ is set in a storeroom of sorts. The actual filming hardly uses 10ftx10ft space. But we never feel the need for more.
The track begins with the sound of the accordion. The movie is halfway through and we see the back of a familiar head, the one always with a tilted cap and mostly a cigarette on lips. The protagonist follows the music. Philosophically, ‘ Hoon abhi main jawaan ae dil ’ is the B side of ‘ Babu ji dheere chalna, pyaar mein zara sambhalna’ .
The gangster’s moll (played by Shakila) who invitingly sang those words of warning, while dancing amidst covetous men in a crammed nightclub, did not follow her own advice. She has fallen for the amiable rake whose heart belongs to another girl. Unrequited love has taken the fire out of her eyes. But she doesn’t want to be pitied. When she falls on the ground and the protagonist picks her up, she gently brushes him off. She has lost in love, but she isn’t a loser. Through these little directorial gestures, Dutt imbues her persona with strength and beauty. The song is filmed in tender close-ups, underlying the director’s empathy for the outsider.
JAANE KAHAN MERA JIGAR GAYA JEE
FILM Mr & Mrs 55, 1955 | MUSIC OP Nayyar | LYRICS Majrooh Sultanpuri | SINGER Geeta Dutt, Mohd Rafi
Offices served as avenues for fun numbers in the past, too, notably ‘ Lara lappa’ (film: Ek Thhi Ladki, 1949). But in this romantic comedy by Dutt, we witness Office Romance 2.0 in the energy and the effervescence of funnyman Johnny Walker and Yasmin, the dimpled steno with eyes that seem eager to spring out of their sockets. The newspaper office transforms into the most romantic place in the world.
Majrooh prefers using ‘ jigar ’, instead of the normally used ‘ dil ’ for heart. And it adds to the song’s distinctiveness. So does the expression, ‘ Kahin maare dar ke chuha to nahi ho gaya ’. How many times before or since have we heard of the heart being compared to a rat? Crawling on the floor in search of a lost heart, amid chairs, tables and typewriters, never looked cuter.
THANDI HAWA KAALI GHATA
FILM Mr and Mrs 55, 1955 | MUSIC OP Nayyar | LYRICS Majrooh Sultanpuri | SINGER Mohd Rafi, Geeta Dutt
We don’t feel the breeze blowing. Or, see the dark clouds the song talks about. Shot by an open swimming pool at Bombay’s well-known PM Hindu Bath in Chowpatty, ‘ Thandi hawa kaali ghata ’, could have been just another number that a heroine and her friends sing in a 1950s movie. Only that it is better and different. The camera showcases and maximises every inch of the physical space that the outdoors offers. The track is marked by a fluidity and symmetry of movement, evident in every frame. The girls slide slowly on the railing. The distant men swim to its melody. And the boys dive into the pool to its rhythm. It is the twirling umbrellas, though, that’s the song’s takeaway visual. Holding these, the group of girls, with the ethereal Madhubala in lead, frolic and frisk like a musical marching band. The track is more than its infectious melody and easy-on-the lips lyrics. It is a celebration of space, freedom and dancing umbrellas.
BICHDE SABHI BAARI BAARI
FILM Kaagaz Ke Phool, 1959 | MUSIC SD Burman | LYRICS Kaifi Azmi | SINGER Mohd Rafi He walks into an empty studio, a metaphor for his own isolation. Everything is in the shadows. He, too, is a shadow of his old self. This was his empire. The empire remains, but the kings have changed. He is a trainwreck now; broken in personal and professional life. The protagonist’s life, told in flashback, begins with the song that has the melody of a requiem, its words his distilled truth of the film world. The track sets the movie’s tone, prepares us for the denouement.
The movie ends with the song, too. The man who had created the star is worn out, like the sweater he is wearing. But she, his one-time protégé, recognises him. He can’t bear to talk to her and runs away as the song plays in the background. When he steps out of the studio gates, she cannot catch up with him as fans besiege her. The film cuts back to the scene where it all began. The perch where he sees his life flash by. How it starts and how it ends. The silence that accompanies the protagonist’s death is music at its best. It’s hard to encapsulate a life in a song. Guru Dutt Padukone captures it.
Just before he died, Dutt had planned a visit to TOI office
On Oct 7, 1964, a reporter from TOI visited Guru Dutt Studios, where ‘Baharen Phir Bhi Aayengi’ was being shot. Dutt was playing a journalist in the film and asked the reporter if he could visit the newspaper’s Bombay office for research. A visit was planned. But three days later, Dutt was found dead. There was a Hindi novel by his side, and a glass with a pink liquid — sleeping pills Sonaril crushed and dissolved in water. The movie would be finished with Dharmendra in the lead.
(Source: Guru Dutt: An Unfinished Story by Yasser Usman)
The songs in his films
Namrata Joshi, July 6, 2025: The Times of India
Guru Dutt was a man of many parts — a consummate actor, a perceptive writer, a trailblazing director and an accomplished producer. A significant element of his oeuvre, worth a deep dive on his birth centenary this July 9, is his flair for conceiving and conjuring up musical set-pieces that haven’t just stood the test of time but become touchstones for visualising a film song for generations of filmmakers.
Take the most popular composition in Dutt’s romantic noir, ‘Jaal’ (1952). It comes as a double bill — two different versions in two distinct situations. Lata Mangeshkar’s sad counterpart — Chandni raatein pyaar ki baatein kho gayi jaane kahan —to the preceding S D Burman-Sahir Ludhianvi song sung by Hemant Kumar— Ye raat ye chandni phir kahan — is striking in the way Dutt slips it into his storytelling. Fisherwoman Maria (Geeta Bali) is pining for the stranger Tony (Dev Anand) she has fallen hopelessly in love with. Her father Carlos (K N Singh) has warned the bad boy to stay away from his daughter and got her formally engaged to Simon (Ram Singh). After the church ceremony, she returns to the same spot by the beach where Tony had once serenaded her — the guitar placed in the backdrop a symbolic reminder of lost love. Once Dutt sets up the scene, he opens it deftly with Hemant’s call for love playing in the background, as a prelude and launchpad for the Lata melody. He then keeps weaving the Hemant line in and out as a memory of Tony that won’t fade.
It’s a unique aural throwback. Voice as a memory. “Filmmakers commonly use flashback of images. Guru Dutt does an audio flashback through a song split over time,” explains author-filmmaker Nasreen Munni Kabir, who made ‘In Search of Guru Dutt’, a three-part documentary on the actor-writer-filmmaker-producer and has written two books on him.
Another song used by Guru Dutt to great cinematic effect is in the romantic comedy ‘Mr and Mrs 55’ (1955). Unlike ‘Jaal’, here the song is in the same time frame but divided across two separate spaces. Geeta Dutt warbles Preetam aan milo (originally a 1945 non-film song of C H Atma) that Anita (Madhubala) is shown listening to on the radio. As her aunt Seeta Devi (Lalita Pawar) switches it off, Dutt cuts to Preetam (Dutt himself) packing his bags to leave town with the song playing on his radio as well. The song becomes a subtle representation of the couple’s estrangement. Later, in the climax, it again plays behind the scenes but this time as a marker of their reconciliation.
“Dutt had a unique understanding of the form, the shot-taking and editing across time and space. His songs are pure cinema,” says Kabir. Dutt’s songs were integral and drove the narrative, be it any genre he directed — the early crime thrillers, the romantic dramas in the middle and the two classic tragedies that have immortalised him. A Guru Dutt song had an identity of its own while always being in harmony with the larger picture. “Just listening to the songs can give you the vision of a Guru Dutt film even though you may not have seen it,” says film historian Pavan Jha.
The magic of black and white and his steady collaborator, cinematographer V K Murthy, were keys to his singular craft such as the signature tracking shots, the eloquent closeups, use of light and shade, the looming shadows and the elemental melancholia alongside slivers of desultory merriment. “The vision was Guru Dutt’s, but Murthy was the one to execute it,” says Jha. Their most potent collaboration was in Waqt ne kiya (‘Kaagaz ke Phool’, 1959) with the play of light writing exquisite poetry on Waheeda Rehman’s face.
There are several seminal aspects to a quintessential Guru Dutt song. The special way he framed the scenes like the iconic “poet Vijay (Dutt) as Christ image” in Ye duniya agar mil bhi jaaye to kya hai (‘Pyaasa’, 1957). Or the way he designed Saakiya aaj mujhe neend nahin aayegi in ‘Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam’ (1962), a film credited to Abrar Alvi with speculations of Dutt having ghost-directed parts of it. In the song, the lead Meenu Mumtaz’s face is brightly lit to keep the focus on her, while the background dancers stay in the shade. The years spent at Uday Shankar’s cultural centre in Almora would have been crucial in imparting Dutt a sense of rhythm that is reflected in the tempo and flow of his scenes and song sequences. Dutt alternates between the Baul singer and Gulabo (Waheeda Rehman) in Aaj sajan mohe ang laga lo in ‘Pyaasa’ to create an inimitable mix of the sacred and the profane as an expression of her inner desires.
Though he gets identified with melancholy, some of his best songs have a conversational beat and a sense of playful banter like Taqdeer se bigdi hui and Aaj ki raat piya (‘Baazi’, 1951); Chori chori meri gali aana hai bura ( 'Jaal'); Mohabbat karlo jee bharlo , Ye lo main haari piya , Babuji dheere chalna , Kabhi aar kabhi paar and Sun sun sun sun zaalima , all in ‘Aar Paar’ (1954), the last one with another version, Ja ja ja ja bewafa .
On the other hand, a seemingly fun song like Sar jo tera chakraaye in ‘ Pyaasa’ becomes an oblique but effective comment on class divides. And who can forget the scathing critique and protest embedded not just in Sahir’s words, but the many tableaus of nation’s troubles and the wry cynicism of Dutt’s face filmed in Jinhe naaz hai hind par wo kahan hain? Guru Dutt is one of the rare Indian directors to have made a film both his crowning achievement and a grand box-office failure — ‘Kaagaz Ke Phool’ (1959). Instead of lengthy dialogue, the almost five-minute song Ud ja ud ja pyaase bhanware captures the once-successful Suresh Sinha (Dutt) — now lonely and forgotten — meeting his end on his rightful director’s chair.
It’s with the likes of Guru Dutt that songs have spoken louder, and more profoundly, than words.
Filmography
As an actor
1964: Picnic
1964: Sanjh Aur Savera
1964: Suhagan
1963: Bahurani
1963: Bharosa
1962: Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam
1962: Sautela Bhai
1961: Full Moon
1959: Kaagaz Ke Phool
1958: 12 O'Clock
1957: Pyaasa
1955: Mr. & Mrs. 55'
1954: Aar-Paar
1954: Suhagan
1953: Baaz
1946: Hum hain ek
As a director
1959: Kaagaz Ke Phool
1957: Pyaasa
1956: Sailaab
1955: Mr. & Mrs. '55
1954: Aar-Paar
1953: Baaz
1952: Jaal
1951: Baazi
As a producer
1966: Baharen Phir Bhi Aayengi
1962: Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam
1961: Full Moon
1959: Jawani Ki Hawa
1959: Kaagaz Ke Phool
1957: Pyaasa
1956: C.I.D.
1954: Aar-Paar
As a writer
1953 Baaz
1952 Jaal
1951 Baazi
As an editor
1974: Kora Kagaz
Miscellaneous Crew
1945: Lakharani (choreographer)
In thanking roles
2012: Remember a Day (Short) (in memory of)
1984: Bhavna (film dedicated to)
1975: Qaid (in fond memory of)
1968: Shikar (in fond memory of - as Guru)
1965: Bhoot Bungla (dedicated to the memory of - as Late Guru Dutt 'Dada')
1962: Bees Saal Baad (acknowledgment)
As self
1960: Kala Bazar
Archive footage
1983: Film Hi Film (uncredited)
