Yeh Duniya Agar Mil Bhi Jaye to Kya Hai

Guru Dutt, whose birth centenary falls this July, created cinematic masterpieces amid the fog of his own uncertainty

- Yasser Usman

WHILE writing Guru Dutt: An Unfinished Story, I discovered facets of his life and mind that were as captivating, and confounding, as the films he left behind. What fascinated me most was the paradox at his core: a film-maker crafting timeless masterpieces like Pyaasa, Kaagaz ke Phool and Sahib Bibi aur Ghulam, even as he wrestled with profound personal turmoil and fragile mental health. Creativity and conflict coexisted in the restless, mercurial mind. One trait that stood out was his curious indecisiveness. Amid his legendary successes, there ran a quiet thread of indecision. For every Baazi, Pyaasa or Sahib Bibi aur Ghulam, there were films that began with great promise, some even partially shot at great expense, only to be abandoned.

Projects like Gouri (Guru Dutt-Geeta Dutt in the lead), Raaz (Sunil Dutt-Waheeda Rehman), Moti ki Mausi (Salim Khan-Tanuja), Kaneez (Guru Dutt-Simi Garewal), Picnic (Guru Dutt-Sadhna), the Bengali film Ek Tuku Chhua (Biswajeet-Nanda) and a few more were casualties of his deepening uncertainty and wavering indecisiveness.

Even his completed films were touched by moments of indecision and costly overshooting. People close to Dutt have gone on record to say that he did not believe in shooting a film with a bound script or strict planning of shooting schedules.

He was rather fond of 'creating' the film as it took shape on the sets, making a lot of changes in the script and dialogues. Abrar Alvi had said that Dutt shot the film in random order and the raw stock he used for any one film could have finished three. Veteran lyricist and film producer Amit Khanna, who worked closely with Dev Anand, told me, “There were others like Raj Kapoor, Ramesh Sippy and Manoj Kumar who shot and scrapped, but Guru Dutt was at some other level. He would scrap films he had shot for months. Very indecisive.”