Pyaasa

THIRST
PYAASA
India
1957
146 Min
Black and White
Hindi
DIR Guru Dutt
PROD Guru Dutt
SCR Abrar Alvi
DP V.K. Murthy
CAST Guru Dutt, Mala Sinha, Rehman, Waheeda Rehman
ED Y.G. Chawhan
MUSIC Sachin Dev Burman
My Rating : 5/5 (Great Movie)

Pyaasa is a landmark film, not only for the film maker but also for Indian and world cinema. Here was a commercial movie director trying something that was beyond just entertainment. He refused to give up the Bollywood structure of film making because he believed in reaching the common audience rather than make films for the art houses. Songs and lyrics are hence an important element of this movie that the viewer must not ignore. This film was different from the subjects explored by socialist cinema pioneers like Raj Kapoor and Bimal Roy. Unlike them Guru Dutt was concerned with the plight of the individual who tried to tread a path less taken.
Pyaasa is a movie that does just that. The protagonist of this movie happens to be an Urdu poet who unlike the fashionable romantic poets, wrote revolutionary style poems that highlighted the malaise of society. His poems are naturally rejected by all publishers but the poet refuses to change his style. Through the struggle of a poet, the film has depicted most of the ills that plagued the young republic. The film is full of villains, who until recently were only the colonial oppressors. The world according to Guru Dutt was not worth living in, and this view point must have been largely rejected by the society as being too cynical.
Commercially Pyaasa generated decent profits and that is probably the reason why Guru Dutt decided to go ahead with another strong and almost personal subject that was Kaagaz Ke Phool which turned out to be a huge box office disaster. Although commercially unsuccessful these two films are two of the finest films ever made in the history of cinema. Pyaasa in particular is widely regarded as an institution in itself. I have attended film making workshops where this film has been literally dissected scene by scene for its merits in screenplay,acting, continuity,editing, shots and almost all aspects of direction. Sahir Ludhianvi’s lyrics are the thoughts of the poet in this movie which combined with S.D Burman’s music and rendered most memorably by Mohd Rafi and Hemant Kumar, are the soul of this movie. Like most Guru Dutt films, this movie has several memorable moments that will remain etched in the minds of viewers forever.
Pyaasa is a mirror showing the ugly face of this world, that unfortunately, will never be cleansed.