I never met Guru Dutt. I was too young when he was around, and growing up in a city as far away as any Indian city could be from where he lived. And by the time I had watched all his films when they were revived as matinee show re-runs, he was dead.But I had enjoyed watching Pyaasa, and loved Kagaaz ke Phool, though my friends didn’t, and Sahib Bibi aur Ghulam was one of my three favourite films, along with Madhumati and Mughal-e-Azam. I gave very little thought to the men behind the films, my teen imagination was quite caught up with adoring the stars on screen. But during a film society screening of Pyaasa, I wondered about the man behind the poet on screen and asked myself if he had modelled the brooding persona after himself.I remember telling a friend that it might have been interesting to meet someone as introverted in real life as his heroes and check out how he could make such amazing films. But, of course, that chance had passed by then.Or so I thought. Until fate brought me face to face with Abrar Alvi, Guru Dutt’s favourite writer and the man who went on to direct Sahib Bibi aur Ghulam.A chance reading of an article. An impulse to know more. A phone call and the coincidence of my surname which he was familiar with, started me on a journey of discovery. And a half felt wish began to materialise into an astounding reality.For Abrar Alvi would introduce me to Guru Dutt. A man he understood more clearly than many of his contemporaries perhaps, because of the professional relationship between them that was steeped in friendship.For two years, every Saturday, I boarded the time machine that Abrar sahab had moored in a corner of his mind and we would travel back to the sixties, to watch the great films being made, one after the other. Of course though they must have crossed their fingers in hope, none of the team that worked with Guru Dutt knew at that time that these would be counted among the great films of Indian cinema. But they put in their best anyway.And week after week, as Abrar Alvi traversed through his memories, along with the stories of the films, an intimate portrait of the man behind them began to take shape.I learnt that the man we all believed was brooding had a fun side. He played practical jokes. And his victims were many, from Abrar sahab himself to Mehmood, the great comedian.I heard how with a finely-tuned, almost Hitchcockian twist of suspense, he had tested Abrar Alvi for a week, to ascertain for himself whether the young man who boasted of a graduate degree could be the writer of his films.And then there were a whole host of contradictions: the man who could concentrate fiercely on the scene he was shooting and ignore even a well-established producer or actor who was visiting his sets, could also summarily drop a project even after wading knee deep into it. The number of films Guru Dutt abandoned, after shooting parts of them, may quite outnumber those that we view on screen today.Like almost every creative artiste, Dutt too was eager to pick up ideas that he could incorporate and modify to make his own. So, CID, was inspired by an English film titled, The man with my face. Then there were the songs that were adapted from Western tunes he had liked. A collector of books, he had a small ‘library’ of books on cinema, and on cameras. And could speak knowingly on lenses that could best frame a particular shot. Abrar shared a telling story of his mentor instructing him on the right lenses to shoot Meena Kumari in Sahib Bibi aur Ghulam.His magpie mind picked up ideas and experiences that piqued his interest. On a trip to Paris, he hired a ‘lady of the night’ (Abrar sahab’s words), to engage her in conversation and discover how she lived her life. The fact that French words sometimes sounded the same as words in Hindi fascinated him. Holding a bar of soap, he burst into the room and before Abrar when he realised that savon in French was akin to saboon in Hindi.Ploughing the fields he owned in the farm in Lonavala, incubating eggs to watch chickens hatch, and thinking nothing of waking up Abrar to make him come across to watch the miracle of life showed the childlike side of a man considered to be melancholy by nature.And of course his love for music, and amazing sense of visualising and shooting songs is a well known fact. A complex man, given to deep ups and downs of mood, who thought nothing of attempting to do away with himself more than once. Sadly, the third time proved to be unlucky for us. And Guru Dutt was gone! His mystique remains. As does his work. To be celebrated, remembered and shared, for decades to come.
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