Aadmee ko jeena hai
Posted on: July 9, 2025
This article is written by Peevesie’s mom, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in other sites without the knowledge and consent of the web administrator of atulsongaday.me, then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.
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Hullo Atuldom
I have undertaken a rather difficult task- writing a post to remember the legendary Guru Dutt & trying to pay a tribute to him in my own humble capacity as I am someone who got acquainted with the actor, director, producer, choreographer, and writer much after his time on this earth.
He was born on 9th July 1925, in Bangalore, to Shivashanker Rao Padukone who was a headmaster and a banker & Vasanthi, a teacher and writer. At birth he was called Vasant Kumar & his family was, essentially, Konkani Chitrapur Saraswat Brahmins; but as his family shifted to Bhowanipore (Calcutta) when he was a child, he learnt & spoke fluent Bengali. (That possibly explains why I initially thought he was a Bengali). He had a sister Lalita Lajmi- (a painter) and 3 younger brothers, Atma Ram (a director known for ‘Umang’, ‘Aarop’ etc.), Devi (a producer known for ‘Masoom’, ‘Aakrosh’ etc.), and Vijay. Vasant Kumar’s name was changed to Gurudatta Padukone following a childhood accident, the belief being that it was an auspicious choice. Director & screenwriter Shyam Benegal is second cousin of Vasant Kumar a.k.a. as Guru Dutt & Amrita Rao (actress of the new generation) is the grand daughter of Guru Dutt’s cousin.
Guru Dutt’s career is said to have started in 1944 when he joined the Lever Brothers factory in Calcutta as Telephone Operator. Prior to that he had joined the Uday Shankar School of Dancing & choreography (Almora) in 1942 as a student. His career in films came about when he joined the Prabhat Film Company on a three-year contract in late 1944.
It was at Prabhat that Dutt met two people who would remain his lifelong good friends—actors Rehman and Dev Anand, the latter of whom would later go on to produce Dutt’s directorial debut.
In 1945, Dutt made his acting debut in Vishram Bedekar’s ‘Lakharani’ (1945), as Lachman, a minor role. (for more details about ‘Lakharani’ we should read this post by our in-house encyclopedia Shri Arunkumar Deshmukh).
In 1946, he worked as an assistant director and choreographed dances for P. L. Santoshi’s film, ‘Hum Ek Hain’, in which Dev Anand made his acting debut. (details about Guru Dutt & his association with ‘Hum Ek Hain’ is also there in Arunkumarji’s post for ‘Lakharani’ along with details about all the directors for whom Guru Dutt had been an assistant to.)
Guru Dutt’s first stint as an independent director came with iconic film ‘Baazi’ (1951) which was produced by Dev Anand’s Navketan & thus honouring an agreement that they had made to each other in their time at Prabhat while both were still new to the industry. Dev Anand and Guru Dutt had reached an agreement that if Dutt were to become a filmmaker, he would hire Anand as his hero, and if Anand were to produce a film, he would use Dutt as its director. Keeping that promise, the duo made two super-hit films together in a row – ‘Baazi’ (1951) & ‘Jaal’ (1952).
Guru Dutt’s first major acting role came in ‘Baaz’ (1953) which he also directed. This film had some technicians & actors who went on to become permanently associated with Guru Dutt’s productions. Here I would like to make special mention of V.K. Murthy, a cinematographer, who in conjunction with Dutt was responsible for artistry, notably the usage of close-up shots, lighting, and depictions of melancholia in films like ‘Pyaasa’, ‘Chaudvin Ka Chaand’, Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam’, ‘Kaagaz Ke Phool’ etc. etc. etc.
All of what I have written till now is based on inputs that I found on the internet & posts that are there on our blog.
Personally, my recollection of Guru Dutt and his films is from what I have seen on television; during my Doordarshan viewing days of weekend films, Chitrahaar, Chhayageet, Rangoli etc. I recall seeing the song aaj ki mulaaqaat bas itni, iss bhari duniyaa mein koyi bhi hamaara na huaa from ‘Bharosa’, yahi hai wo saanjh aur saweraa from Saanjh aur Saweraa, ital ke ghal mein teetal from Bahurani etc. before getting acquainted with the songs from ‘Pyaasa’, ‘Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam’ and all the other films that were directed by Guru Dutt himself; I have grown to like these over the years. But, in my younger days, I had zero knowledge about the work & life of Guru Dutt.
A few year back, our Sudhirji had written this post on what would have been Guru Dutt’s 92nd birthday. His post spoke of the mental frame of a director who’s last work wasn’t well-received by the viewing public. The song that he posted was a snippet from ‘Pyaasa’ and maybe that was one of the last available song, that was lip-synced by Guru Dutt, to appear on the blog.
On the days preceding my writing this post, I consulted Atulji & Sudhirji to find possible songs that can be used with today’s birth centenary post. (This is the difficult task that I spoke of in the opening para). The helpful duo pointed towards songs from the unreleased film ‘Picnic’ (1960) & released film ‘Sailaab’ (1956). In fact, I saw that Sadanand Kamathji has also mentioned about the songs of ‘Picnic’ in the comments to Sudhirji’s post of Peechhe peechhe duniya aage aage hum.
The song that Kamathji has mentioned is the song with today’s post. That particular video is used in the 1983 movie ‘Film Hi Film’ where Pran a retired filmmaker speaks about unfinished films. The song is filmed as a club-song with Helen mouthing words written by Sahir Ludhianvi & composed by N. Datta in Asha Bhosle’s voice. We can see Guru Dutt in the audience.
Thinking of the actor, filmmaker on what would have been his 100th birthday.
Song-Aadmee ko jeenaa hai (Film Hi Film)(1983) Singer-Asha Bhonsle, Lyrics-Sahir Ludhianvi, MD-N Datta
Lyrics
hey
aadmee ko jeena hai
aadmee ko jeena hai
zehar ho ke amrit ho
muskura ke peena hai ae
aadmee ko jeena hai
dhoop bhee hai
chaanv bhee hai
zindagee kee raahon mein
jitne dukh hain
jitne sukh hain
sab ko lele baahon mein
aadmee ko jeena hai
aadmee ko jeena hai
zehar ho ke amrit ho
muskura ke peena hai
aadmee ko jeena hai
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
July 9, 2025 at 11:58 am
Nalini ji,
Not a new information for you. But, just for completion sake… Kalpana Lajmi, documentary and motion picture director was Gurudatt ‘s niece ( sister ‘s daughter ). RUDAALI, with it’ s brilliant performances and music has earned her a permanent place in the history of Indian cinema.
On Wed, Jul 9, 2025, 05:30 Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi
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July 9, 2025 at 2:21 pm
oh yes! I forgot to mention that in the post 😃
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