Geeta Dutt

Early life

Geeta Ghosh Roy Chowdhuri was one of 10 children born to a wealthy Zamindar family in a village named Idilpur, presently under Gosairhat Upzilla of Shariatpur District, Bangladesh, formerly under Faridpur district in Bengal, British India. Her family moved to Calcutta and Assam in the early forties, leaving behind their land and properties. In 1942, her parents moved to an apartment in Bombay. Geeta was twelve and continued her schooling at the Bengali High School.

Career

K. Hanuman Prasad took Geeta under his patronage, trained and groomed her in singing and later launched her into singing for movies. In 1946, she got the first break with an opportunity to sing in the mythological film Bhakta Prahlad for which Prasad was the music director. She was given only two lines to sing for two songs.

In 1947, she got her break with Do Bhai. The music of Do Bhai became a hit with "Mera sundar sapna beet gaya" topping the charts. Geeta Roy's fresh and melodious voice combined vivacity and pathos in such a way that, despite a pronounced "Bengali lilt," the song touched the pulse of thousands of music lovers. She was popularly nick-named "Bangal ka jadu" (the magic from Bengal). In the same film she sang the evocative "Yaad karoge, yaad karoge, ik din humko yaad karoge." It was remarkable for a teenager to sing with such maturity.

In the same year, she sang for Hunuman Prasad's other releases.

The uncanny ability of Geeta Dutt that made her race past her contemporaries was her unique versatility to sing any kind of song with the authentic tone, feeling, passion and emotion as demanded by the composition and the situation it was being picturised in. From a bhajan to a club song, from a haunting melancholic song to a peppy romantic number, she could traverse the range of music, seemingly effortlessly. This unique versatility helped Geeta (Roy) Dutt carve out a niche and cement her place even when the Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle phenomenon was sweeping through the world of Hindi playback, following the runaway success of Aayega Aanewala in Mahal (1949). Geeta Dutt's chart-busting "Tadbeer se bigdi hui taqdeer bana le" in Guru Dutt's directorial debut Baazi (1951) was the turning point where "Geeta Roy's vivacity was matched every inch by Geeta Bali on-screen". S. D. Burman had turned a ghazal by Sahir Ludhianvi into a sensual club song much to the chagrin of the famed lyricist-poet: The ploy worked as Baazi proved a hit on the strength of that song alone.

S D Burman fully exploited Geeta's potential across the spectrum. "Aan milo shyam saanware" (Devdas, 1955), the duet with Manna Dey, has the unmistakable touch of the Baul folk music of Bengal. "Nanhi kali sone chali" (Sujata, 1959) is one of the most popular and heart-touching lullaby ever where Geeta Dutt's voice rings maternal love in every note. The bubbly exuberance of "Aye dil mujhe bata de" (Bhai Bhai, 1956) is in sharp contrast to the pathos of "Waqt ne kiya" in (Kaagaz Ke Phool, 1959).

Personal life

During Geeta's recording of songs for the movie Baazi, she met its young up-and-coming director, Guru Dutt. Their romance culminated in marriage on 26 May 1953. Geeta and Guru Dutt had three children: Tarun (1954-1985), Arun (1956-2014) and Ninā (b. 1962).

With music directors Hemant Mukherjee (better known as Hemant Kumar in Bombay film industry) (Harano Sur, Sonar Harin) and Nachiketa Ghosh (Prithibi Amare Chaaye, 1957 and Indrani, 1958), Geeta Dutt came up with songs that were hauntingly melodious, youthful and heartwarming. At a time when Sandhya Mukherjee's voice was synonymous with Suchitra Sen, Hemant Mukherjee and Nachiketa Ghosh picked Geeta Dutt. She also cut a number Non-film discs, singing to the tune of notable music directors like Sudhin Dasgupta and Anal Chatterjee.

In 1958, S.D. Burman had developed discord with Lata Mangeshkar as a playback singer and he attempted to work with Geeta as the main singer of his compositions rather than the upcoming Asha Bhosle who, he felt, was relatively raw. However, out of her personal problems, Geeta would not practice her art sufficiently and failed to meet Burman's demanding standards. (He and O.P. Nayyar then started to work with Asha and helped her blossom as a singer.)

Guru Dutt's magnum opus Kaagaz Ke Phool came in 1959 in which Guru Dutt himself starred in the lead role with Waheeda Rehman. The film was in a way reflective of his own views on life and the transitory nature of fame and success in the film world.

Geeta Dutt came up with one of her best renditions in the heart-rending "Waqt ne kiya kya haseen sitam," composed by S. D. Burman and penned by Kaifi Azmi where she poured out her pain, anguish and pathos in every word. However, the box-office disaster of Kaagaz Ke Phool (which is now considered a classic) left them shattered, financially and emotionally.

In 1964, Guru Dutt died from a combination of alcohol and an overdose of sleeping pills. (His death was widely perceived as a suicide following two earlier attempts.) Geeta then suffered a serious nervous breakdown and ran into financial problems. She tried to resume her singing career, cutting discs at Durgā Pujā and giving stage shows. She performed in a leading role in a Bengali movie, Badhu Baran (1967), and sang admirably Anubhav (1971), which was her final performance to the music of Kanu Roy as she died of liver cirrhosis in 1972, at the age of 41.

Death

Geeta died of cirrhosis of the liver due to excessive consumption of alcohol on 20 July 1972 in Mumbai.

Notable songs

Further information: List of songs recorded by Geeta Dutt She is supposed to have sung over 1200 songs in Hindi films. In addition, she has sung songs in many Indian regional languages including Marathi, Bengali, Maithili, Bhojpuri and Punjabi. She has sung in Nepali evergreen movie Maitighar.

Some of the songs sung under S. D. Burman's direction:

Some of the songs she sang under O. P. Nayyar's direction:

Some of the songs sung under Hemant Kumar's direction

Madan Mohan's direction

For movie Anubhav (1971)

Several songs from Jogan:

Some Bengali songs:

A few Bengali songs of non-film genre:

Government recognition

A postage stamp, bearing her face, was released by India Post to honour her on 3 May 2013.