It is said that when Guru Dutt saw Waheeda Rehman for the first time, he believed he had found his muse, and over the next few years as he worked with her, he designed his films around her. But, while Guru Dutt was rumoured to be having an affair with Waheeda, his relationship with his wife, singer Geeta Dutt, was going through a turbulent phase. Their love, which had once fought against the odds of society, was slowly waning. At one point, they even separated. Geeta even tried to catch Guru Dutt red-handed because she believed he was cheating on her, and he went as far as raising his hand on her.
Geeta was a star, Guru Dutt was a struggling director
When Geeta and Guru Dutt first met, he was still directing his debut film Baazi, but she was a star. Geeta, who then went by Geeta Roy, was one of the most popular singers of this era and had been hired to sing the song ‘Tadbeer Se Bigdi Hui’ for his film. Sparks flew and before they knew it, they started seeing each other, but since they were at different stages of their careers, they could not afford the same things.
Guru Dutt was still taking the bus, while Geeta would travel in luxury cars. He lived with his family in Matunga, Mumbai, and she would visit his mother often and would entertain her by singing her favourite songs. Before they knew it, Guru Dutt’s family was in awe of her but Geeta’s family was not comfortable with the relationship. She was the sole earning member of the household, and as it often happened in those days, the family was dependent on her earnings and did not want to let her go. They could only get married three years later.
Guru Dutt’s sister Lalita Lajmi told Nasreen Munni Kabir in Guru Dutt A Life in Cinema, “We all loved her. Lovely, wonderful Bengali lady. She used to come in a big car but she was very humble, very good at heart. Whenever she didn’t have a song recording, she would come, help in the kitchen too.”
Guru Dutt’s mother suspected that the marriage would never work
By the time they got married, Guru Dutt’s career was starting to take off but he was yet to establish himself in the movies. Geeta, on the other hand, was an even bigger star. This led to rumours that he had, in fact, married her for her stardom and wealth. “People, as well as relatives, said that Guru Dutt married Geeta because of her money and because of the big name she had in the industry,” shared Guru Dutt’s mother Vasanthi Padukone in a chat with Imprint magazine. She believed this was all false, but despite that, she already had an intuition that the marriage would never work out.
“Somehow, I had an intuition that Guru Dutt and Geeta’s marriage would never be a happy one. Firstly, in those days, she earned in thousands whereas Guru Dutt’s income was limited compared to hers. Secondly, both were stubborn and would never yield to one another. Thirdly, Guru Dutt had a burden of responsibilities on his shoulders,” she shared with the magazine.
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GUru Dutt with wife Geeta Dutt and their two sons. (Photo: Express Archives)
Guru Dutt hated her drinking, tried to halt her career
Not just this, Guru Dutt did not approve of his wife’s social circle. He did not like when she drank, even though he liked his drinks too. “Guru Dutt could not tolerate women drinking heavily. In certain ways he was old-fashioned. He disliked parties and the so-called women’s lib. He was Indian at heart. In this way, Guru Dutt and Geeta were losing each other. It was so pathetic to observe. But no one had the boldness to bring them together,” his mother shared with the same magazine.
As time went on, he also expressed his disapproval over her career and believed that since she was not a star anymore, she should only sing for his films. By this time, Guru Dutt had become way more famous than her, and in many ways, the tables had turned. Author Bimal Mitra, who shared a complex friendship with Guru Dutt, wrote about their relationship in a memoir titled Binidra and recalled a conversation where he asked why Guru Dutt was stopping Geeta from singing in films. The filmmaker acknowledged that Geeta was not as successful as she once was, and believed that once someone hits their peak, they should pause. “But I let her do playback in all my films,” Guru Dutt said as Bimal called him out on the superiority of his statement.
When Guru Dutt slapped wife Geeta
For Geeta, the interference in her career wasn’t the only thing that bothered her. Like the rest of the town, she too had heard stories about Waheeda Rehman, and Geeta found herself running from one person to another just so she could find out about her husband’s affair. After all, they were parents to two sons by then. At one point, she landed at Abrar Alvi’s home and asked him if he knew anything about their relationship; he denied it completely despite knowing that the relationship between the director and his actress wasn’t purely professional. Abrar was a close confidante of Guru Dutt and towards his last years, Abrar practically lived with him.
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It speaks volumes about the relationship between Geeta and Guru Dutt that she had no faith in him. In Guru Dutt An Unfinished Story by Yasser Usman, Vasanthi Padukone has been quoted as saying that Geeta was a “jealous and temperamental” woman who was quite gullible. So those around her tried to take advantage of the same.
Guru Dutt with wife Geeta Dutt. (Photo: Express Archives)
At one point, Geeta fabricated a letter and signed it as Waheeda Rehman. In Ten Years with Guru Dutt Abrar Alvi’s Journey, written by Sathya Saran, Abrar recalled that Guru Dutt handed him this letter, which read like a declaration of love. The letter said that he must come to see Waheeda at a discreet location. Guru Dutt was confident that Waheeda would never write this, and suspected his wife. When he and Abrar reached that location to find the truth, they saw Geeta’s car pull up. “I think this was the first time. That night, after going home, he confronted Geeta with the episode and, as he confessed to me later, raised his hand on her,” Abrar said.
‘You want me to look worse than Waheeda Rehman?’
Geeta had also suffered a few setbacks in her finances, as her brother had produced a film, Sailaab, on her behalf and lost all of her money. After years of supporting her family, she now found herself bankrupt. At home, she was losing her husband and could not come to terms with the fact that he found Waheeda more of an inspiration than her.
In an attempt to save his marriage, Guru Dutt decided to make a Bengali film, Gouri, with his wife. Geeta was not an actor but he decided to make a film where she would play the titular character, and he would play the leading hero. The crew started shooting in Calcutta but during one of the early days, they had a massive fight on set. Screenwriter Nabendu Ghosh, in his autobiography Eka Naukar Jatri, recalled that while the crew waited for Geeta on set, Guru Dutt grew impatient. When she ultimately arrived, he yelled at her as he was extremely unhappy with her makeup and believed that she had deliberately ignored his instructions.
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The screaming match continued in front of everyone and ended after Geeta yelled, “What do you want? That I should look worse than Waheeda Rehman?” Stunned silence followed, and the shoot was cancelled. The film was then shelved. Guru Dutt came back to Mumbai and started working on Kaagaz Ke Phool.
Geeta’s alcoholism hampered her career
In the subsequent years, Guru Dutt’s career faced a few setbacks but Geeta went from being a star to now singing a few songs, and while she desperately tried to sing as much as she could outside of her husband’s banner, her drinking was starting to harm her reputation. “Slowly, stories about Geeta’s alcoholism were heard. I never saw her drinking openly though. It first began with sleeping tablets. Then it went on to some kind of drugs,” Lalitha Lajmi told Yasser Usman.
Meanwhile, Guru Dutt had had enough emotional turbulence in his life and decided to leave Waheeda to give his marriage another shot. The husband and wife patched up and went on their second honeymoon to Srinagar. Soon after, they welcomed their daughter Nina. But this revival of the relationship was short-lived.
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Geeta Dutt offering her prayers to late Guru Dutt. (Photo: Express Archives)
Guru Dutt wasn’t meant for a normal married life
By 1963, Guru Dutt and wife Geeta, along with their two sons, moved out of their bungalow in Pali Hill as Geeta believed that the house was bad luck for their marriage. They temporarily moved into another apartment and soon after, Guru Dutt started living on his own.
His brother, Atmaram, told Nasreen Munni Kabir that Guru Dutt was never meant for a “normal married life”. “I don’t think that he was meant for a normal married life. He should have lived like someone in France, where you live with someone and are not necessarily married to them. But Guru Dutt was also tied to tradition. It wasn’t a question of unfaithfulness, it was more than that. He felt no responsibility towards his family, or towards society in any manner. He would not attend any parties or family functions. Geeta was a sociable sort, it was very difficult for her. When he was in his 20s and 30s, he worked round the clock. If he’d feel like going away, he would take his car and go straight from the studio to Lonavla without informing anyone. So there were a lot of misunderstandings. Geeta was a very good person, very talented; but intellectually they were not matched,” he said, summarising their relationship.
Despite the marital troubles they might have had, Geeta still loved Guru Dutt until the very end. Her son Arun recalled that she had a “nervous breakdown” after Guru Dutt died in 1964, and could not recognise anyone for the next few months. Less than ten years later, Geeta died in 1972 due to cirrhosis of the liver.
