Guru's legend comes alive on stage

Delhi had a dramatic weekend as legendary actor Guru Dutt’s life and death came alive on stage through Ten Years With Guru Dutt: Abrar Alvi’s Journey. Despite being an English play, it highlights key aspects of Guru Dutt’s life and times.

The play is based on a book by journalist-author Sathya Saran, in which Abrar Alvi, Guru Dutt’s assistant shares his memories of an intense working relationship with the director over a period of 10 years. It also includes segments like the discovery of Waheeda Rehman, and how Alvi and Dutt worked separately on a single scene!

The play which transports the audience to the era of ‘black and white’, capsules the filmmaker’s milestones in little less than two hours. It also showed that Sahib Bibi aur Ghulam - considered a masterpiece in producer Dutt’s repertoire was actually directed by Alvi and not Dutt. The songs were Guru’s contribution because few could
him when it came to shooting songs - this turned out to be especially true for Na jao saiyan....

Sahib Bibi aur Ghulam, one of Hindi cinema’s greatest classics was not without its share of ups and downs. An actress from London had been finalised for the role and had even flown down but as it turned out, Guru changed his mind and decided that he wanted to go with his original choice, Meena Kumari. But wanting her was easier said than done. Not only was she the most expensive heroine of her time, her husband Kamal Amrohi rarely allowed her to work outside of his home productions.  But Guru Dutt being the perfectionist that he was, asked Alvi to go and talk to Meena Kumari for this role. As they say, the rest is history.

The play also highlighted the fact that comedian Johny Walker was really close to Guru and how the latter desperately wanted him in each of his films. Even if it meant having him for just a song, Guru made sure that the comedian would be there.

The play also brought to the fore the chance accident involving a buffalo which led to the discovery of Waheeda Rehman. Although the play shies away from the ‘love angle’ between the two, the book contains a no-holds-barred account of the love that the filmmaker bore for his muse.

Guru Dutt was an alcholic and a chain smoker too. On his last night, the director in a state of depression, owing to marital issues with wife Geeta Dutt, consumed sleeping pills. Alvi who was with him hours before he died, narrates that he was unable to stop Guru from drinking that fateful night.

He then recalled how they had once shared a joke on sleeping pills and how Guru had said that one cannot enjoy death after having sleeping pills because one goes off to sleep. Instead, one should mix pills with water for a ‘proper’ death! Whether he had a proper death or not, Guru’s action cost the country a visionary and a genius, but he ensured that a legend would live on!