4. Pyaasa - 1957

• The film’s inspiration came from the poem /lyric: Seven cities claimed Homer dead/ Where the living Homer begged his bread.
• Original choice for Vijay’s role was Dilip Kumar who refused thinking it would be too similar to Devdas. Madhubala was to play Meena, but Mala Sinha did finally.
• Guru Dutt scrapped the film’s first four edited reels because he wasn’t satisfied.
• In the original ending, Vijay walks away alone but later Dutt opts for a less tragic end where he is accompanied by Gulabo.

One day he gives away his coat to a beggar who dies in an accident and his body is mistaken for Vijay’s. Presuming him dead, Gulabo uses all her savings to get his poems published. Ironically, the book becomes a bestseller. In the film’s pivotal moment, Vijay literally rises from the dead to make a grand entry into the function organised to commemorate him and his work. He mocks at his posthumous fame and confronts society for its hypocrisy. The pessimistic strain is heightened by V.K. Murthy’s stunning visual metaphors, like the persecuted poet framed as a Christ figure in Jaane woh kaise log the jinke.... Sahir’s lyrics, the virtual spine of the film, broaden the poet’s own frustrations into a larger disenchantment with the nation. This was, after all, the time Nehruvian optimism was giving way to a darker questioning mood: Jinhe naaz hai Hind par woh kahan hain? The critique gets sharper, more subversive with Jala do ise phoonk dalo yeh duniya. Finally, the contemptuous rejection implied in the refrain—Yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaaye to kya hai.

But Pyaasa’s unrelenting sense of gloom lifts at two glorious junctures: the teasing and playful Gulabo leading Vijay on with Jaane kya tune kahi, and her love and longing for Vijay finding an oblique expression in the erotic Baul bhajan Aaj sajan mohe ang laga lo.