Guru Dutt - A filmmaker whose talent got shunned by the Box Office
Have you ever heard of a village Padukone? Yes Padukone is a village in Byndoor Taluk, Udupi District, Dakshin Kannada Region of Karnataka. It was the birthplace for many other entertainers and sportsmen. Not many know this, but this was where a creative person was born. His real name was Vasanth Kumar Shivashankar Padukone. This man would later become Guru Dutta Padukone or Guru Dutt.
On 1925, Guru Dutt was born into a family of Chitrapur Saraswat Brahmins who spoke Konkani. He shifted to Bhavanipur in Kolkata where he spoke the Bengali Language. In 1942 at just 17 years, he studied Dance at Uday Shankar's Dancing School in Almora. But 2 years later, he was expelled for an affair he had with a lady dancer.
Dutt found employment as a telephone exchange operator but he left the job as he was not feeling good. His uncle landed him a job at Prabhat Film Company. It was where he developed a dosthi like camaraderie with two actors Rahman and Dev Anand who was already an evergreen star.
His acting debut was a minor one and later went on to work as assistant and did the dance moves for Hum Ek Hain which was Dev Anand's debut. After his contract with Prabhat ended, Dutt joined hands with Dev for 3 films; Baazi, Jaal and CID. Future Collabs became tough because of creative differences between Dutt, and Chetan Anand (Dev's Brother).
Dutt later directed and starred in Baaz which was the coming together of the Guru Dutt team; Johnny Walker (Actor-Comedian), VK Murthy (DOP), Abrar Alvi (Scenarist- Filmmaker), Raj Khosla (Writer) and Waheeda Rahman (Actress). This was a flop.
Dutt directed many Blockbusters like Aar Paar, Mr. and Mrs 55, CID, Sailaab and Pyaasa. Pyaasa was a movie that revolved around a struggling poet who grapples with his identity. His next film Kaagaz Ke Phool (an autobiopic) was released and unfortunately, it took a beating at the box office and was a flop both critically and commercially. This film, However went on to become a cult classic.
This dealt a heartbreaking blow to Dutt who decided that he was done with filmmaking. He still continued to act in some movies like Chaudvin Ka Chand and Sahib, Bibi Aur Ghulam. He died on October 10th 1964 from a lethal overdose of Alcohol and Sleeping Pills.
Guru Dutt is Hindi Cinema in the Golden Age. It was so sad that the crude BO reception to Kaagaz Ke Phool spelt doom in his life as a filmmaker. We need to acknowledge him even more.
