Geeta Dutt and Guru Dutt a passionate couple whose story
will touch your heart. He was the one who made her and he was the one who
destroyed her.
Guru Dutt, famous for making brilliant lyrical and artistic
films within the context of popular Indian cinema of the 1950s, and expanding
its commercial conventions, was born Vasant Kumar Shivashankar Padukone in
Bangalore to Shivashankar Rao Padukone and Vasanthi Padukone.
His family was having financial difficulties. Guru Dutt as a
teenager joined the arts troupe of Uday Shankar (older brother of Ravi
Shankar), where he learnt dance, drama and music.
At the age of nineteen, he found a job with Prabhat Film
Company in Pune in 1944. Baazi, his first directorial debut and the second home
production of good friend, actor Dev Anand, came in 1951 and went on to become
a super-hit. It was the making of this movie that marked the beginning of his
relationship with Geeta Roy.
Geeta Roy was recording the song 'Tadbeer Se Bigdi Huyi
Taqdeer,' in the presence of Guru Dutt.After hearing this he fell in love with
her and her voice.
Geeta Roy used to come to Dutts house regularly. She would
simply take down the harmonium from their shelf and sing Bengali songs. Now
Guru Dutt fell in love with her madly.
Guru Dutt and Geeta Dutt formed a perfect team. She sang
such lovely song that we still hear them. 'Hoon abhi main jawan', 'Jaa jaa jaa
bewafa', 'Babu ji dheere chalna' and 'Yeh lo main haari piya' in Aar Paar
(1954) were like prolonged outburst of harmonious sensations.
At the time of their marriage, Geeta was one of the top
singers while Guru Dutt was still a struggling director. This led to talk that
he married her for financial security, which hurt him deeply. So much so, that
he now wanted her to stop singing for anyone else, but himself. She complied,
or so he thought. Such a drastic step would have stifled her range
considerably. Unable to control her passion, she started singing secretly and
would be back early in the evening before Guru arrived. Before long, almost all
of her singing for outside banners got limited to two-bit club songs . All this
tension, worry about not getting home in time affected her singing and she
started getting fewer offers. She finally gave up and started singing for home
productions only.
Both Guru Dutt and Geeta Dutt were supremely talented
artists, touching new heights of success with every release. Both were
temperamental, sensitive and easy to hurt. He smoked heavily, drank heavily,
and kept odd hours.
The year was 1956. Guru Dutt introduced a new girl, Waheeda
Rehman in his movie 'C.I.D.' Rumors of his affairs with his new leading lady
started surfacing, which left Geeta Dutt hurt. Guru Dutt wanted to launch a
film 'Gauri' in 1957 with Waheeda Rehman in the lead and Geeta Dutt was to be
launched as a singing star. But she refused to do the movie. So the movie got
shelved after just a few days of shooting.
This incident lead to a lot of tension at home and divorce
became inevitable. The breaking up of her marriage also began having
repercussions on her career. She started neglecting her riyaz. And to make
things worse she began finding solace in drinks.
The downfall began. On October 10, 1964, Guru Dutt committed
suicide, his third attempt. Geeta was broken after his death and suffered a
nervous breakdown, during which, she failed to recognize even her own children.
When she recovered nearly six months later, she was
financially in a bad shape. She tried to resume singing again, cutting discs at
Durga Puja and giving stage shows , she was even doing a Bengali film, 'Badhu
Bharan' (1967) as heroine!
But due to her drinking habit she died of cirrhosis of the
liver on the 20th of July, 1972. A very tragic love story. Love was there from
both side but due to professional pressure they started searching for peace but
didn't realized that it was in their union.
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