Guru Dutt is remembered as the iconic actor and filmmaker of early 50’s in Bollywood. The golden age of Hindi Cinema when a young nation was finding its feet and technology from the west was being experimented in the creative space. He was one of the most popular commercial actors who had a touch of artistic and lyrical content in his films. Born as Vasanth Kumar Shivashankar Padukone, Guru Dutt had an estranged family and thus a lonely childhood. It is said that because of his lonely and not so normal childhood, Guru Dutt had an inclination towards tragic and sad stories. From ‘Pyaasa’ to ‘Saheb, Biwi Aur Ghulam’, his films had a beautifully written, sad yet poetic narrative.

Interestingly, despite having enchanting stories, good actors, memorable songs, Guru Dutt’s films never got their dues during their time. They were never big commercial successes, in fact ‘Pyaasa’ and ‘Kagaz ke Phool’ were considered box office flops.

The major reason for this is the fact that most of his films released just after independence. People had dreams and hopes like that of a young teenager and films at that time depicted their dreams, the world they wanted to live in. Guru Dutt presented reality to people at that time. He persuaded the audience to see the other side; he portrayed certain rawness in his movies.

Guru Dutt used symbolism like no other filmmakers of that time. In Pyaasa he filmed most of Vijay and Gulaab’s conversation in the staircase, symbolizing a hierarchy of love, a greater feeling that was between the two characters. He ridiculed the traditions and norms. He was a visionary who knew where greed and ignorance can take people. His films’ storyline never succumbed to the traditional notions of things. The female leads in his films were powerful and were given equal screen space in all spheres.

He used his creativity sensibly . He always stuck to his side of the story, never cared much about the response and created a vision that would describe Indian society for many more years to come.

There are endless reasons why Guru Dutt is considered as the best film-maker that Bollywood has ever seen and using his freedom of expression and thoughts is one of them. His idea of romance was tragic; he moved away from rose-colored spectacles and always drowned his protagonist in depths of alcohol.  There may be reasons why Guru Dutt was not the greatest company to keep at that time but all of his movies are the biggest inspirations for today’s directors, more closely of Anurag Kashyap and Vishal Bharadwaj.

On his 95th birth anniversary we salute a legend and a visionary whose ideas and symbolism have guided film-makers even till now and carved a niche for Bollywood noir films.