Kashmakash. A bewitching, resonant Urdu word that translates to perplexity, conflict, dilemma.... It may have a dichotomous connotation, but the sonority of kashmakash lends it an enchanting quality that instantly draws you in.
Kashmakash is an apt descriptor for Guru Dutt. The legendary actor-director — unarguably regarded as one of the greatest filmmakers of Indian cinema — led a life defined by paradoxes and created cinema characterised by contrasts. Today marks Guru Dutt’s — who died at age 39 — 100th birth anniversary. Very few artistes have left a mark as indelible as Dutt’s in a career this brief. A creative life distinguished by groundbreaking storytelling and technical experimentation resulting in quick and heady success, but a personal life, in direct opposition, being one of self-destruction and desolation. Kashmakash was the mainstay of both his personal and professional lives.
Take for instance his earlier films as director. Vasanth Kumar Shivashankar Padukone — who later became Gurudatta Padukone and eventually Guru Dutt — started off as an actor, but it was with Baazi, his 1951 directorial debut, that he proved his prowess belonged more (and better) to the director’s chair. Starring good friend Dev Anand — in their early years at Prabhat Film Company, the two, still new to the industry, had made a buddy pact that if Dutt were to become a filmmaker, he would hire Anand as his hero, and if Anand were to produce a film, he would use Dutt as its director — Baazi was a sureshot commercial crowd-pleaser, with Guru Dutt introducing the Hindi cinema audience to crime noir.
Baazi, starring a charismatic Dev Anand, spawned the ‘Bombay Noir’ genre, which gave birth to quite a few similar films in Bollywood (most of which were successful) in the 1950s and ’60s. Jaal (1952), another bona fide winner with Dev Anand, and CID (1956) — that Guru Dutt produced and his protege Raj Khosla directed Anand in — cemented Guru Dutt’s enviable position as a commercially successful creative force with a finger on the pulse of the audience. The resounding box-office popularity of Aar Paar (1954) and Mr & Mrs 55 (1955) — both starring Guru Dutt as the leading man and directed by him — continued his invincible streak.
PORTRAIT OF THE ARTISTE AS A TORTURED MAN
Yet, Guru Dutt yearned for something different. As a deeply sensitive creative person, he was keen to make cinema that asked life’s deeper questions, its meaning, purpose and the place of an artiste in a flawed society. Existentialism and the increasingly growing feeling that he was being pushed into making cinema that did nothing for him or the world was gradually creeping up on Guru Dutt. The dismal failure of Sailaab (1956) is what propelled him into the latter, and in hindsight, more intellectual, phase of his career. It was also one which established Guru Dutt’s cinema as one tinged with melancholia and an element of futility. Guru Dutt the ‘Tortured Artiste’ was born.
It was then that Guru Dutt — broken from within, with his marriage on the rocks and a creative soul unsatisfied — turned to a short story he had written at the age of 22. Kashmakash, an account of internal conflict and disillusionment, mirroring Guru Dutt’s own experiences, especially during the early years of his career, formed the foundation for Pyaasa. In fact, Pyaasa — now a cult classic, along with Guru Dutt’s final directorial outing Kaagaz Ke Phool — was initially titled ‘Kashmakash’.
Even as he spiralled off screen, Guru Dutt gave all he had to Pyaasa. He lent Pyaasa, a film set in Calcutta in which he played a struggling poet routinely facing disillusionment who gets unexpected assistance — and love — from a sex worker, played by a relatively new Waheeda Rehman, his trademark motifs of evocative imagery, the play of light and shade and his striking ability to weave multiple thematic layers into his narratives. Pyaasa evolved like a frenzied fever dream on screen, and Guru Dutt — who had always reportedly underestimated himself as an actor — took on the central role, a part that was initially offered to Dilip Kumar.
‘I HAVE NOTHING’
Pyaasa, a commercial success, is described as Guru Dutt’s most personal film. His Vijay embodies the artiste’s rebellion, a refusal to compromise rectitude for societal acceptance and his ability to rise above the flaws of the world. In the film’s climax — for which he apparently went in for a mind-boggling 104 takes — Vijay appears at his own memorial, after he is presumed dead, and ridicules those celebrating his poetry. Standing in the theatre doorway, in that famous shot that makes its way into almost every Bollywood-in-history showreel, he expresses his disdain for what he believes is superficial acclaim, declaring in Mohd Rafi’s unmistakable voice: “Yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaaye toh kya hain?”
However, in just two years, the disdain had turned into disillusionment and depression. In Kaagaz Ke Phool, his last film on the director’s chair (he directed eight in total), we find a somewhat darker, more introspective look at self-destruction and the ephemeral state of life and relationships (the title is a nod to the same). Guru Dutt was deeply influenced by filmmakers like Ingmar Bergman and Federico Fellini and Kaagaz Ke Phool has been noted for its Bergman-esque themes of existentialism and self-scrutiny.
The story of Kaagaz Ke Phool — which flopped then, but is today regarded a masterpiece and taught in film schools — revolves around Suresh Sinha (played by Guru Dutt), a famous film director, who discovers a woman named Shanti (Waheeda Rehman) and helps her become a successful actress. However, his own career declines (in a direct reflection of the actor-director’s own) as he grapples with personal issues and societal pressures. Living in poverty, consumed by failure and shame, Sinha returns to the empty film studio where he once reigned. There, in a heartbreaking scene, he dies alone in the director’s chair, a broken man defeated by society and his own failures. Kagaz Ke Phool embraced nihilism — the idea that life is absurd, not worth living and resignation is the only way out — but Guru Dutt told it in the way that only he could — haunting and beautiful.
Guru Dutt’s legacy is, however, not limited to being just an actor and filmmaker. He was known to nurture talent, with his A-team — Johnny Walker (actor-comedian), V.K. Murthy (cinematographer), Abrar Alvi (writer-director), Raj Khosla (writer-director), Waheeda Rehman (actress), among others — all going on to create cinema for the ages. As a producer, he lent might and muscle to classics like Chaudhvin Ka Chand, Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam and Baharen Phir Bhi Aayengi.
However, it is the tormented artiste in him that remains indelibly etched in our minds. His longtime collaborator V.K. Murthy had once quoted Guru Dutt telling him: “I wanted to be a director, an actor, make good films — I have achieved it all. I have money, I have everything, yet I have nothing.”