Guru Dutt is omnipresent: Arif Zakaria on playing filmmaker in 'Rahenge Sadaa Gardish Mein Taare'

New Delhi, Jul 9 (PTI) Actor Arif Zakaria says Guru Dutt's life has a mystery and aura that makes him a fascinating figure in Hindi cinema which is why when he got a chance to play a character modelled on the filmmaker in "Rahenge Sadaa Gardish Mein Taare", he jumped at the chance.

The play, written by Saif Hyder Hasan, featured Zakaria and Sonali Kulkarni in lead roles and was quite successful as they travelled around India and in different parts of the world with it.

"Guru Dutt is a mythical name as far as the Hindi film industry goes because his life is very mysterious. His films are very dark and brooding. Also, the fact that he died young, he died at age 39, so that adds on to the aura and the mystery.

"Guru Dutt is omnipresent in Bollywood. He is always there... If there is any dark shot or any frame which is heavily lit up, if it goes in a little black and white tone or sepia tone, then people say, 'Are you making a Guru Dutt's film?' He is always with us and always will be because his body of work, cinema content and personal life was like that," Zakaria told PTI in an interview.

Like most of the Indians, he first became familiar with Guru Dutt through his films but there is also a personal connection between the filmmaker's family and Zakaria. "We had Kalpana Lajmi, who gave me my first break. Her mother was Guru Dutt's sister, Lalita Lajmi, who was a painter. So, the first time I actually got very close to Guru Dutt's life was interacting with Kalpana, who was his niece, and through Kalpana with her mother Lalita ji. She had a lot of stories about Guru Dutt -- his childhood, inspirations and personality." Zakaria said as time passed, he read a lot about Guru Dutt and then met theatre director Saif Hyder Hasan who had written the play based on Guru Dutt's life.

"He made me read it and as I had this great fascination for Guru Dutt sahib, I said, 'why not? Let's give it a try'.

"It is more difficult to do it in theatre, as opposed to cinema. So, we rehearsed and then we opened this play and then it ran successfully for a number of years. We took it all over the world. We did shows in Australia, US, Canada. Sonali Kulkarni played Geeta Dutt. I came to know a lot about Guru Dutt through that play. For example, he used to write love letters to his wife, wherever he used to do outdoor shoots." Zakaria said they changed the format of the play as they found out that Guru Dutt was an avid letter writer.

"We showed it like that. Husband is traveling, shooting, he writes a letter to the wife. His personal journey, his mental state, that sometimes people are unable to express vocally, can be expressed through letters. After playing this, I could understand the depth of his journey even better through his characters." PTI CORR BK RB RB