He is Pyaasa to some and Bhootnath to a few others. July 9, 2025 is going to be more than just a mundane Wednesday. This occasion officially marks 100 years of a legend who left a mark that no one could completely match up to.
As a child, I was alien to the name Guru Dutt. But all it took, were just two films to make me mesmerised and curious about the person who owned the name Guru Dutt. He became a household name for many during the 50s when he made his directorial debut with film icon Dev Anand through Gamble (1951).
I was introduced to the Guru of Bollywood’s Golden Age when I watched ‘Pyaasa’ and later, found myself deeply impacted by ‘Sahib Bibi aur Ghulam’. After just two movies and several conversations with a fellow professor from Christ (Deemed to be) University, my perspective grew tenfold.
GenZ enjoys all things retro and vintage. Yet, we also live on memes. But as a fellow GenZ myself, I realised that some timeless things have been overlooked by our 24x7 screen-engrossed eyes. Therefore, I made it my personal mission to speak with a Guru Dutt lover from Christ University Central Campus to understand the cause of this disconnect. She has been a faculty member under the Department of Media Studies for several years.
I asked her, “Why is there a huge disconnect between Guru Dutt’s movies and the GenZ culture even though both the parties have been advocating for almost the same topics?”
She smiled, eyes softening a little, “It’s not that they don’t connect. I still remember how during a film screening of ‘Pyaasa’, students thoroughly enjoyed the song ‘Sar Jo Tera Chakraye’. They didn’t even know that this was a Guru Dutt movie song. Kids today don’t know how to sit down and that too patiently with a film as beautiful as ‘Pyaasa’ or ‘Kaagaz ke Phool’. His films demand patience. Because you can’t just doomscroll your way through those movies.”
This simple exchange lasted only fifteen minutes. But these fifteen minutes allowed me to see that Guru Dutt’s works broke social stigma in the most subtle fashion. Guru Dutt was radical in the most elegant way because he broke the societal stigma around the most looked down upon topics and then he filmed the shards of that broken social imagination.
For instance, ‘Sahib Bibi aur Ghulam’ was a whisper of revolution because for the very first time in 1962, a film dared to ask a brutal but easy question, ‘Can a loyal and loving wife drink alcohol to keep her husband by her side?’ There are movies which interrogate its audience slowly and beautifully. Guru Dutt made the bold choice to build Meena Kumari’s character as a wife who willfully submits herself to her partner but demands love, attention, care and an intimate relationship. For the first time, the male gaze humanised a woman’s pain instead of romanticising it or limiting the female character’s emotional capacity to something ornamental.
Pyaasa was another commercial hit despite being a mockery of the way Indian modern society starves a dreamer of his potential until the very end. This story isn’t just about artistic rejection. Neither it is just about the eerie parallel between the main character Vijay’s success and Guru Dutt’s very own artistic feats after their passing. Pyaasa diverts from the angry young man trope and chooses to explore masculinity as an emotionally wounded male. The film’s strength also lies in humanising different struggles of women. While on hand, there is a woman who makes the pragmatic choice to give up love and choose material security for her own benefit. On the other hand, Pyaasa puts the feelings and struggles of sex workers under the microscope. Not to mock them, but to empower their fight.
Guru Dutt created films for a world that considers his films ahead of their time. Yet, this statement doesn’t do justice to the art created by him which left bruises and didn’t try to beautify those scars. A question still lingers, was Guru Dutt too early or are we still late?
Today we remember Guru Dutt for his craft but at the same for the tragic end to his world. Instead, let’s remember him for the way he poured his heart and soul to give birth to Bollywood's golden age that only shines brighter because of him.
