‘Guru Dutt taught me that pitying oneself may be lovely, and that heartbreak is cinematic.’

IMAGE: Waheeda Rehman and Guru Dutt in Pyaasa.

It felt like stepping again in time on Wednesday, August 6, 2025, night as cinema fanatics got here collectively to have fun Guru Dutt.

2025 marks 100 years of the legendary film-maker’s beginning on July 9, and to have fun the second, Javed Akhtar, Hansal Mehta, R Balki, Sudhir Mishra, and senior journalist Bhawanaa Sommaya received collectively for uplifting conversations on Guru Dutt’s cinematic craft.

The plush multiplex in Mumbai’s Juhu reverberated with S D Burman songs Hum Aapki Aankhon Me and Aaj Sajan Mohe Ang Lagalo in Geeta Dutt and Mohammad Rafi’s melodious voices.

“After my commencement,” recalled Javed Akhtar, “I assumed I’d go to the movie business and help Mr Guru Dutt for a few years after which I’ll develop into a director. When you find yourself 18, issues are easier and simpler. It’s unlucky that I got here to Bombay in 1964 on October 4 and he handed away on October 10, so I may by no means see him.”

WATCH: Javed Akhtar reveals why Dilip Kumar turned down Pyaasa

Video: Afsar Dayatar/Rediff

 

IMAGE: Moderator Rohini Ramanathan with Bhawanaa Sommaya, Javed Akhtar, R Balki, Sudhir Mishra and Hansal Mehta.

Director Sudhir Mishra mentioned Guru Dutt had a profound affect on him as a film-maker and revealed that he watched the 1962 movie Saheb Bibi Aur Ghulam no less than six instances as a youngster alongside along with his grandmother.

“There’s nothing in my life that I’ve achieved that isn’t influenced by him. I have not measured as much as to him, however I am attempting to. Each movie that I’ve achieved, each shot that I’ve taken, each scene I’ve written, and music that I’ve tried to picturise, I can not think about it with out Guru Dutt.”

“He taught us make movies, see a scene, take a blueprint, which is a script, and he rewrite it in a movie,” Mishra added.

WATCH: Sudhir Mishra on the ladies in Guru Dutt’s movies

Video: Afsar Dayatar/Rediff

 

The occasion included a screening of the restored model of Pyaasa. Co-written and directed by Dutt, the movie exhibits him as a destitute poet named Vijay who finds encouragement in a tender-hearted prostitute named Gulabo, performed by Waheeda Rehman.

“I found Guru Dutt’s movies a lot later. Pyaasa is the primary movie I noticed and it left an enduring impression on me. He (Dutt) has taught me that pitying oneself may be lovely, and that heartbreak is cinematic,” Hansal Mehta famous.

“I want I could make a movie that talks about heartbreak and like to pay tribute to the one that influenced me,” Mehta added.

WATCH: Why Hansal Mehta thinks Guru Dutt wasn’t a ‘nice actor’

Video: Afsar Dayatar/Rediff

 

R Balki, whose 2022 movie Chup: Revenge of the Artist had references to Guru Dutt and Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959), mentioned Dutt is an ‘epitome of sensitivity’ and his relevance as a film-maker stays simply as essential within the present panorama of cinema.

“(Guru Dutt) conjures up me to recollect sensitivity, you will need to really feel susceptible and never be understood by many individuals, you simply go on. Right now, the stress is extra on artists,” defined R Balki.

“The extra I watch his movies, I have a look at the vulnerability of the film-maker, I by no means have a look at the craft.”

Guru Dutt’s movies Aar Paar, Baaz, Mr & Mrs 55, Chaudhvin Ka Chand, Pyaasa, Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam can be screened throughout India between August 8 and 14.