Guru Dutt: The tragic life of an Indian cinematic genius

Iconic Indian manager and histrion Guru Dutt was conscionable 39 years aged erstwhile helium died successful 1964 but helium near down a cinematic bequest that continues to resonate decades later.

Born connected 9 July 1925 successful the confederate authorities of Karnataka, adjacent week marks his commencement centenary. But the antheral down the camera, his affectional turmoil and intelligence wellness struggles stay mostly unexplored.

Warning: This nonfiction contains details immoderate readers whitethorn find distressing.

The shaper of classical Hindi films specified arsenic Pyaasa and Kaagaz Ke Phool - movie schoolhouse staples for their timeless themes - Dutt forged a profoundly personal, introspective benignant of filmmaking that was caller successful the post-independence era.

His analyzable characters often reflected his idiosyncratic struggles; his plots touched upon cosmopolitan motifs, inviting the assemblage to face uncomfortable realities done hauntingly beauteous cinema.

Dutt's beginnings were humble and his puerility was marked by fiscal hardship and a turbulent household life. After his household shifted to Bengal successful eastbound India for work, a young Dutt became profoundly inspired by the region's civilization and it would signifier his cinematic imaginativeness aboriginal successful life.

He dropped his surname - Padukone - aft entering the Bombay movie manufacture successful the 1940s. He made his debut not arsenic a manager but arsenic a choreographer, and besides worked arsenic a telephone relation to marque ends meet. The turbulence and uncertainty of the decennary - India's independency conflict had intensified - impacted the aspiring filmmaker's prospects.

It was during this signifier that helium penned Kashmakash, a communicative rooted successful creator vexation and societal disillusionment, ideas that would aboriginal signifier his cinematic masterpiece Pyaasa.

Dutt's relationship with chap struggler Dev Anand - who soon roseate to fame arsenic an histrion - helped him get the accidental to nonstop his archetypal movie successful 1951. The noir thriller, Baazi, propelled him into the spotlight.

He soon recovered emotion with celebrated vocalist Geeta Roy, and by galore accounts, these aboriginal years were his happiest.

After Dutt launched his ain movie company, helium scored back-to-back hits with romanticist comedies Aar-Paar and Mr & Mrs 55, some featuring him successful pb roles. But yearning for creator depth, helium acceptable retired to marque what would go his defining movie - Pyaasa.

The hard-hitting, haunting movie explored an artist's conflict successful a materialistic satellite and decades later, it would spell connected to beryllium the lone Hindi movie successful Time magazine's database of the 20th Century's 100 top movies.

Dutt's precocious younger sister, Lalitha Lajmi, who collaborated with maine erstwhile I wrote his biography, said that Pyaasa was her brother's "dream project" and that "he wanted it to beryllium perfect".

As a director, Dutt was fond of 'creating' the movie arsenic it took signifier connected the sets, making a batch of changes successful the publication and dialogues and experimenting with camera techniques. While helium was known for scrapping and reshooting scenes, this reached worrying levels during Pyaasa - for instance, helium changeable 104 takes of the present celebrated climax sequence.

He would outcry and get bad-tempered erstwhile things did not spell right, Lajmi said.

"Sleep evaded him. The misuse of and dependence connected intoxicant had begun. At his worst, helium started experimenting with sleeping pills, mixing them successful his whiskey. Guru Dutt gave his each to marque Pyaasa - his sleep, his dreams, and his memories," she said.

In 1956, arsenic his imagination task neared completion, 31-year-old Dutt attempted suicide.

"When the quality came, we rushed to Pali Hill [where helium lived]," Lajmi said. "I knew helium was successful turmoil. He often called me, saying we request to speech but wouldn't accidental a connection erstwhile I got there," she added.

But pursuing his discharge from hospital, nary nonrecreational enactment was sought by the family.

Mental wellness was a "socially stigmatised" taxable astatine the time, and with large wealth riding connected Pyaasa, Lajmi said that the household tried to determination on, without afloat confronting the reasons down her brother's interior struggles.

Released successful 1957, Pyaasa was a captious and commercialized triumph that catapulted Dutt to stardom. But the filmmaker often expressed a consciousness of emptiness contempt his success.

Pyaasa's main cinematographer VK Murthy recalled Dutt saying, "I wanted to beryllium a director, an actor, marque bully films - I person achieved it all. I person money, I person everything, yet I person nothing."

There was besides a unusual paradox betwixt Dutt's films and his idiosyncratic life.

His films often portrayed strong, autarkic women but disconnected screen, arsenic Lajmi recalled, helium expected his woman to clasp much accepted roles and wanted her to sing lone successful films produced by his company.

To support his institution thriving, Dutt had a elemental rule: each creator gamble should beryllium followed by a bankable commercialized film.

But buoyed by the occurrence of Pyaasa, helium ignored his ain regularisation and dived consecutive into making his astir personal, costly and semi-autobiographical film: Kaagaz Ke Phool.

It tells the communicative of a filmmaker's unhappy matrimony and confused narration with his muse. It eerily ends with the decease of the filmmaker aft helium fails to travel to presumption with his acute loneliness and doomed relationships.

Though present hailed arsenic a classic, it was a commercialized nonaccomplishment astatine the time, a stroke Dutt reportedly ne'er overcame.

In the Channel 4 documentary In Search of Guru Dutt, his co-star Waheeda Rehman remembered him saying, "Life mein bash hullo toh cheezen hai - kamyaabi aur failure. (There are lone 2 things successful life: occurrence and failure) There is thing successful between."

After Kagaz Ke Phool, helium ne'er directed a movie again.

But his institution recovered implicit time, and helium made a beardown comeback arsenic a shaper with Chaudhvin Ka Chand, the astir commercially palmy movie of his career.

He past launched Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam directed by his trusted screenwriter Abrar Alvi. By this time, Lajmi said, his idiosyncratic beingness was successful terrible turmoil, marked by temper swings.

The movie delved into the loneliness of a pistillate trapped successful a loveless matrimony to a philandering, often tyrannical landlord successful an opulent yet feudal world.

Writer Bimal Mitra recalls that Dutt told him astir his conflict with sleeplessness and reliance connected sleeping pills during this time. By then, his matrimony had collapsed and intelligence wellness had worsened. Mitra recalled galore conversations with Guru Dutt's changeless refrain: "I deliberation I volition spell crazy."

One night, Dutt attempted to instrumentality his ain beingness again. He was unconscious for 3 days.

Lajmi says that aft this, connected the doctor's advice, his household called a psychiatrist to inquire astir attraction for Dutt but they ne'er followed up. "We ne'er called the psychiatrist again," she added with regret.

For years, she believed her member was silently crying for help, possibly feeling trapped successful a acheronian abstraction wherever nary 1 could spot his pain, truthful acheronian that adjacent helium could not find a mode retired of it.

A fewer days aft Dutt was discharged, the shooting for Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam resumed arsenic if thing had happened.

When Mitra asked him astir the incident, Dutt said, "Nowadays, I often wonderment what unrest was this, what was the restlessness that I was hell-bent connected committing suicide? When I deliberation astir this, I get terrorised with fear. But that day, I felt nary dilemma successful swallowing those sleeping pills."

The movie was a success, became India's authoritative introduction to the 1963 Berlin Film Festival and besides won a nationalist award.

But Dutt's idiosyncratic struggles continued to mount. He separated from his woman and adjacent though helium continued acting successful films, helium battled profound loneliness, often turning to intoxicant and sleeping pills for respite.

On 10 October 1964, Dutt, 39, was recovered dormant successful his room.

"I cognize that helium had ever wished for it [death], longed for it... and helium got it,' his co-star Waheeda Rehman wrote successful the Journal of Film Industry, 1967.

Like the protagonist of Pyaasa, existent acclaim came to Dutt lone aft helium was gone.

Cinema enthusiasts often wonderment what mightiness person been had helium lived longer; possibly helium would person continued to reshape India's cinematic scenery with his visionary, poetic works.

Yasser Usman is the writer of the biography Guru Dutt: An Unfinished Story