Filmmaker Guru Dutt’s days in Pune: Uncredited roles, Dev Anand’s shirts and a strange love affair

Given his dance training with the great Uday Shankar, Pai hired Guru Dutt as a choreographer on a three-year contract with Prabhat. Originally founded in 1929 in Kolhapur and later shifted to Pune where a sprawling and well-equipped studio was set up, Prabhat was among the most well-regarded film production firms in the country, known especially for making socially relevant movies.

Speaking to The Indian Express, film historian Anil Zankar shared, “At Prabhat, Guru Dutt discovered his love for the movie camera, working behind it as a choreographer and as assistant to directors and in front of it in small uncredited roles. The philosophy at Prabhat was that every employee should know every facet of filmmaking which seems to have helped newcomers like Guru Dutt. It was here that he got his first screen credit – as a choreographer for ‘Hum Ek Hain’ (1944) and made his first screen appearance in ‘Lakhrani’ (1942). His stay at Prabhat was short but he made important friendships including that with actors Dev Anand, Rehman and Ram Singh.”

His friendship with Dev Anand, which started with the oft-cited mix-up of clothes by the launderer at Prabhat, proved the most fruitful with the latter offering him his first assignment as director in ‘Baazi’ (1951).

In an interview with Nasreen Munni Kabir in 1989, Dev Anand recounted how the group of youngsters, Guru Dutt, Rehman, Ram Singh, and Anand, would go about cycling in Pune: “We shared a common dhobi who gave my clean shirts to Guru Dutt by mistake and gave me his. Guru Dutt was working with (Vishram) Bedekar, and had a very small role in Hum Ek Hain. Guru Dutt, Rehman, and I would cycle around the streets of Poona together. We became great pals as we were the same age. Guru Dutt and I promised each other that if he got a chance to direct, then he’d cast me in the leading role, and if I got a chance to produce, then Guru Dutt would direct the picture.”

A love affair gone awry

During his stint at Prabhat, Guru Dutt was reportedly involved in a love affair which turned out to be rather strange as it caused some trouble for his family. As per his mother Vasanthi Padukone’s account of her son’s life, Dutt was involved with a dancer at Prabhat who worked under him and he wanted to marry her.

“During Ganesh Puja, he gave us a surprise visit with a girl. He introduced her as my future daughter-in-law. We were happy and wanted Guru Dutt to marry soon,” she writes in ‘Nanna Maga Guru Dutt’, a biography of her son written by her and published in 1976.

However, soon after this visit, the family received a letter from a lawyer in Pune who alleged that Guru Dutt had eloped with the girl and that the former was liable to face legal action. This was followed by a visit to the Padukone household by the lawyer’s wife who tried her best to persuade the family to marry Guru Dutt and the dancer at the earliest.

The family later learnt that the lawyer had an extra-marital relationship with the dancer and that the wife was keen that the girl married someone else and hence was pressing for Guru Dutt’s marriage with her. The family sensed trouble and took Dutt to Mumbai for a while which ended this ‘crisis’, as per Vasanthi’s account.

In 1947, Baburao Pai left Prabhat and formed his own company, Famous Pictures and Studios, in Mumbai. Guru Dutt followed Pai and became an assistant to director Anadinath Banerjee who was making the film ‘Mohan’. That ended Guru Dutt’s tryst with Pune and Prabhat.