Geeta Dutt was the voice of intimacy

What captivates us about her, five decades after the early demise of Geeta Dutt remains a mystery. After all, in her heyday, Geeta had to reckon with Lata Mangeshkar ousting her to become the first choice of composers. And yet, Geeta, who passed away at 42, managed to hold her own among the legends of that era.

On the occasion of her 50th death anniversary, that falls on July 20, 2022, this tribute talks about how the playback singer transcended both the lyric and the tune of her songs, investing them with an authenticity that beckons the listener to a place of intimacy.

Let's take six examples from her 1,200-odd Hindi songs. We begin with ‘Mera sunder sapna beet gaya’ ('Do Bhai', 1947) for mentor SD Burman. Here, a 17-year-old Geeta infused with all the desolation of thwarted love. With her unique elongation of the words ‘beet gaya’, she made the point early in her career that for her, playback singing was not about technique but about being true to the emotion.

Three years later, in the Dilip Kumar-Nargis starrer 'Jogan' (1950) Geeta evocatively captured Meerabai’s longing for spiritual union with her lord with the raw feeling she poured into 'Mat jaa jogi'. Barely 20 then, Geeta could yet traverse the distance between passion and devotion within that Meera bhajan.

By 1954, Geeta had gone Western in style with a slew of songs tuned for her by SD Burman and OP Nayyar. It was her new-found seductive allure that producers now made a beeline for, convinced that just one song by Geeta in the cabaret-jazz idiom would make any score more saleable. No other song demonstrates the hold she had on this genre better than her solo tuned by Madan Mohan for 'Bhai Bhai' (1956). Lata’s ‘Qadar jaane naa’ in the ghazal oeuvre may have earned accolades for the composer from no less a luminary than Begum Akhtar but for the layperson then and now, it is Geeta’s effervescence in ‘Aye dil mujhe bata de’ that holds sway, where she was able to go beyond just the intoxication of falling in love that the lyrics convey, and allude to the ephemeral nature of that joy.

Too much is made of her songs for husband Guru Dutt’s films, almost fusing her identity as a singer with his as filmmaker. That said, the one song from his films that affirms her uniqueness is ‘Waqt ne kiya’ (Kaagaz Ke Phool, 1959). Kaifi Azmi’s lyric has layers of meaning that Geeta unravels with remarkable restraint. The line 'Kya talaash hain kuch pata nahin' speaks to a contemporary dilemma of our times where we believe that we have what we want, and yet long for something else. The song also marks the zenith of the SD Burman-Geeta collaboration, since the demanding composer never again entrusted to Geeta a solo song.

By the turn of the decade, Geeta had become preoccupied with her marital turmoil, neglecting her career in the process. An industry that swiftly moves on to the next saleable proposition had Asha replace Geeta in the recording room. Bereft of love and music, Geeta sought solace in alcohol, a state of mind so tellingly conveyed in the way she got the slur right for “Na jao saiyyan” (Sahib, Bibi, aur Gulam, 1962). In true Geeta style, her singing here is nuanced: it is a plea for love no doubt; and yet an assertion of the will to love. In a radio programme, that she presented in 1969, Geeta admitted that the predicament of Meena Kumari in the song comes close to her own in real life.

A decade later, just eight months before she breathed her last, Geeta resurrected herself one last time for her three bewitching solos in Kanu Roy’s score for 'Anubhav' (1971). In what turned out to be her swansong, Geeta’s bittersweet rendition of ‘Mujhe Jaan Na Kaho Meri Jaan’ resounds with the conviction she brought to Gulzar’s lyric that spoke simultaneously to the enchantment of losing one’s identity in love, and to the impossibility of sustaining it. Which perhaps explains why, 50 years since her death, Geeta lives on for her listeners as the voice that articulated the predicament of being human best.

(The writer is the author of the national-award winning book 'Bollywood Melodies: A History of the Hindi Film Song').