A Rain of Sorrow, A Rain of Gloom

Features—

Jun 8, 2022

Poet, novelist, essayist, and translator Geet Chaturvedi (b. 1977) is a major figure in contemporary Hindi literature. He has published two sets of novellas and three volumes of poetry that turn a wry eye over the changes wrought in urban India by the spread of free markets. In 2019, a selection of his poems, translated into English by Anita Gopalan, appeared under the title The Memory of Now. His two essay collections cast a wide net, discussing poetry, Hindustani classical music, visual art, and not least, world cinema.

A thread of cinephilia runs through Chaturvedi’s work. In 2018, he translated into Hindi Many Questions to Myself, excerpts from the diary of director Amit Dutta. He has written several ekphrastic poems, reflecting on films by Tran Anh Hung, Wong Kar Wai, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, and Hou Hsiao-hsien, among others. In “For the Films of Yasujro Ozu,” he writes:

When secret lovers die, where do they go?
They stand and shine as lightbulbs
On the poles on that part of the street where your window opens
For many, many days, one does not even come to know
Of their death

[translation by Anita Gopalan]

This essay from 2007 is a fantasia on one of the most-speculated-upon events in Hindi film history: the death of Guru Dutt, which is alleged to have been a suicide—he was found on the morning of October 10, 1964, alone in a rented apartment in Bombay, reportedly with alcohol and sleeping pills. Among the film personalities referred to are Dutt’s wife, the playback singer Geeta Dutt; his muse and favored lead actress Waheeda Rehman; the actor-filmmakers Dev Anand and Raj Kapoor; and Dutt’s frequent cowriter Abrar Alvi. —Ratik Asokan

On that terrifying night, eyes swaying in drunkenness, he cried again and again into the receiver, “Hello . . . Geetu . . . It’s me, Guru . . . I can’t stand this loneliness. Please, come over. I need you here . . . ” He groveled. Having burned in envy for years, Geeta Dutt now giggled, and then, like a hunter piercing a rabbit with a poison-tipped arrow, she said, “I still love you, Guru . . . But you are yearning after Waheeda, not me. Call her in Madras. Perhaps she will come. I am not going to . . . no matter how sweet your words . . . ”

Geeta didn’t come. Waheeda had grown distant. The fragrance of paper flowers had proven elusive. For many nights, Guru had slow-cooked in the tandoor of sadness, turning from side to side. That night, he mixed many sleeping tablets with his beloved scotch. There was a time when he used to call Raj Kapoor, sometimes Dev Anand. Both now refused to come. All he wanted was to rest his loneliness in someone else’s lap and lay there till late. With Dev, he wanted to recall the early days of Prabhat Films. With Raj, he wanted to drift into a sentimental mood, reminiscing on the mischief they had gotten up to at the Bombay seaside. He wanted to tell Geeta that he endlessly loved her. He wanted to tell Waheeda that he loved her like an artist loves his artwork. His yearning was dismissed as an eccentricity. They all said no in their own way.

Guru swallowed the pills, losing consciousness. As his spirit floated away (like in the last scene of Paper Flowers) his body remained there, waiting for people to arrive. His phone rang incessantly. Geeta Dutt was calling to say that Guru, I’m coming now. At that very moment, in Madras, Waheeda Rehman was trying to book a lightning call for Mr. Gurudutt Padukone. Even Dev Anand and Raj Kapur wanted to call him.

Dawn broke. A belief spread on Guru’s face, the belief that he was to die. He was certain that no one would come now . . . Everyone disperses, one by one. It was this belief that gifted a smile on Guru’s face. He died with an ironic smile—a slanted smile.

Everyone was late in waking up. The morning had come slowly. A few hours later, the whole world had arrived at his doorstep, and Guru’s spirit, throwing open the doors, began singing in a low voice, “So what, even if you win this world . . . ” Light shone behind that spirit. Before it, all was darkness.

He loved darkness. He was a magician of black and white. He was a shadow wavering in the dark. No one could see him clearly. Not Geeta, not Waheeda, and not the viewers who came to the cinema hall for two and a half hours, whose darkness he filled with light, for years mixing with his scotch the darkness that spread across all the corridors of his heart. That mixture, like tears, flowed through his films. Guru Dutt was the name of that drop that comes out of the tear glands and is transformed into rain. A rain of sorrow, a rain of gloom.

In life we are touched by some people. We are embraced by some people. But there is a kind of touch that surpasses all others, giving strength in its uniqueness. We can spend our whole lives recalling that one touch. The wealth of a lifetime can accrue from that one glance that forever lives in our heart, wraps our bodies like a shadow, that challenges heat’s time with its shade, that cries out in its coldness, that gives the warmth the gift of its ice, and moistens burning eyes. Guru also lived for one touch. He set up his home in Waheeda’s one glance, which had first fallen on him in Hyderabad. He lived in those tears, which fell from his eyes when he read Bengal’s Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay and Norway’s Knut Hamsun. He lived in those travails, which slipped on the street in Mumbai’s naked nights.

When, in the shikaras floating on Kashmir’s Dal Lake, Waheeda planted kisses on his forehead, his eyes brimmed over. He said, “Geeta has left me. Don’t ever leave me.” And a few days later, Waheeda left him. For her career’s sake, she began to sign on with rival studios. The film industry is full of cunning foxes. Guru and his friend Abrar Alvi repeatedly explained to Waheeda that he needed her. Waheeda simply counted her dreams. And so Guru collapsed in such a way that he could never be put together again. The last kiss on his forehead had proved to be a trick, adding to the number of lines spreading there.

Almost all of Guru’s letters were filled with apologies. He was like a rabbit that breaks out of its enclosure in its sleep and, having awoken, returns to beg forgiveness from the barbed wire. He had a forever-yearning heart, which wandered in search of love. All he wanted from the world was one thing: that it would understand him a little, steady him a little. And all the world said that he was but a sultan of eccentricity: don’t give him anything, just laugh at him. The people around Guru did not manage to understand him, did not give him what he wanted. One fine day Guru dismissed his name from the world’s ledger.

Translated from the Hindi by Asokan

A Rain of Sorrow, A Rain of Gloom

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