Image Source : tv9hindi.com
One thing that the Indian Film industry swears by is that the Bollywood playback scene would have been completely different than what it is if the true nightingale of India, Geeta Dutt was alive. The incredibly talented vocal artist who was famous for playback singing in several hit Bollywood movies like Kaagaz Ke Phool, Anubhav, and Pyaasa died at the tender age of just 41 years on November 23, 1930. If she were alive, this year would have been her 93rd birthday, so let’s take a walk down memory lane and remember one of the greatest voices India has ever heard.
The initial years of Geeta Dutt
Her life cannot be remembered without mentioning her successful career as a Hindi playback singer. However, she, like every other success story of the entertainment industry, had to struggle. At the age of 12 when she moved to Bombay with her family she continued her passion for music and practiced her art in her home. It was during a practice session when the music director K. Hanuman Prasad heard her vocals and persuaded her parents to consider a music career. By 1946, Geeta got her first break under Prasad’s wing and debuted in the movie “Bhakta Prahlad”. At just the age of sixteen, the mesmerizing sincere started her journey in the industry.
Geeta Dutt: India’s one of the first successful playback singers
Geeta Dutt made her Bollywood debut with the hit song ‘ Mera sundar sapna beet gaya’ in the blockbuster ‘Do Bhai’ in 1947. In the words of Raja Mehendi Ali Khan and the music of S D Burman, Geeta added her magical voice and became India’s most favorite new playback singer. Her unique style of singing, her husky vocals, and her emotional runs quickly made her a special place in the audience’s heart. Throughout her career, the singer has delivered hits after hits and was also hailed as the female counterpart of the legendary K.L.Saigal.
Born into a wealthy Zamindar family in East Bengal, Geeta Ghosh Roy Chowdhuri had always shared a passion for music since her childhood, something that her parents also encouraged. After her successful debut in 1947, Geeta went along to form striking partnerships with legendary music directors like Hemant Kumar, OP Nayyar, and of course, S D Burman. All of these directors gave her memorable songs with great emotional depth and yearning for love that honored her voice and proved to be the best suited for Geeta. However, she sang some of her career’s best songs for Guru Dutt, another multi-talented film director of India, who happened to also be Geeta’s ex-husband.
Geeta Dutt’s influence on Lata Mangeshkar
In the era of the 1950s, Geeta dominated Hindi playback singing with her soulful singing voice and style. This was also the time when Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle, and Shamshad Begum started their careers in the industry. The most successful playback female singer of India Lata Mangeshkar was just starting and already had a big threat on her career as Geeta was dominating the industry and becoming a favorite of music directors.
One of the greatest lost potentials of all time, Geeta Dutt not only imposed a threat on Lata’s career, but in this process, she ended up making Mangeshkar a better singer. Even though there were rumors of these two legendary singers not being on the same page, in one interview Lataji recalled how “Whenever we met we were like two school girls exchanging gossip,” which confessed that they were friends, contrary to popular beliefs. While talking about Geeta Dutt’s influence on her singing career and art, Lataji mentioned, “Her voice was unique and evocative. No one could sing Waqt Ne Kiya Kya Haseen Sitam the way she did. In fact, I paid homage to Geeta in my Shradhanjali album. It wasn’t meant to show that I could sing the song better than her. Like I said, no one could sing the way she could.”
Troublesome marriage with Guru Dutt and Heartbreak
While talking about her life, one name that comes up the most is Guru Dutt, her husband and the man who changed the course of her life, and her career, like no other person could.
Born as Vasant Kumar Shivashankar Padukone, Guru Dutt started his career under a three-year contract with Prabhat Film Company in Pune in 1944. In 1951, he made his debut in the Hindi film industry as a film director with the film ‘Baazi’. The movie starred Dev Anand and went on to become a super hit. It is during this time on the sets of ‘Baazi’ Geeta Dutt met Guru Dutt.
Geeta Roy had already been famous as a female playback singer by then and was recording the movie’s track ‘Tadbeer Se Bigdi Huyi Taqdeer’ in the presence of the film director and the two met for the first time. Guru Dutt was impressed by the raw, and emotional singing voice and Geeta’s talent.
Geeta Roy’s singing had a habit of infatuating everyone who listened to it, so it was not only the director who was impressed by her vocals, it was his mother too. Soon, Geeta became a regular visitor to Dutt’s house and molded herself as someone who was just a regular girl, not a superstar with a huge fan following. It was only a matter of time before Guru Dutt fell head over heels with Geeta Roy and the two tied the knot in 1953. This was also the beginning of some of the most romantic songs of the era where these two extremely talented individuals, now married, collaborated regularly.
Geeta Dutt’s mesmerizing vocals made films like Aar Paar (1954), Mr. and Mrs. 55 (1955), Pyaasa (1957), Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959), etc. memorable to date. It is best to say that Geeta became her best self when she was Mrs. Dutt. Her popularity and fame rose to the highest. When she married Mr. Dutt, she was already a successful playback singer but he was just a struggling actor and director in the industry. This led to gossip stating Dutt married her for financial security which led to some trouble in the paradise. At one time, Geeta only sang for her husband and his projects. The final blow to the marriage was the alleged affair between Guru Dutt and Waheeda Rehman. The marriage of nearly 5 years crumbled before eyes and Geeta soon started living with her children separately.
Their break up was also the downfall of both Geeta and Guru Dutt’s career. In an alleged suicide attempt, Guru Dutt was found dead in his Mumbai apartment with alcohol and a far too many sleeping pills in his system on 10 October 1964. Geeta Dutt did not survive the heartbreak either, and only after eight years of her ex-husband’s death, Geeta Dutt passed away on 20 July 1972.
Now what would have been her 93rd birthday on November 23rd, 2023, we are left wondering whether the playback scene at Bollywood would have been changed if Geeta Dutt had not met that tragic fate.
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