Remembering Guru Dutt’s connect with Madras on his centenary-OxBig News Network

Today, July 9, 2025, is when Guru Dutt, had he lived wisely and well, would have completed a hundred. And I could not let pass this opportunity to connect my favourite filmmaker with my favourite city. Much of what I write in this article is sourced from Nasreen Munni Kabir’s Guru Dutt, a Life in Cinema (OUP, 1996).

Though born in Bangalore and a Saraswat by community, it was Calcutta that Guru Dutt most closely associated with. It featured in many of his films, as also did Bombay where he spent much of his working life. But very interestingly, one film alone had a strong Madras connect in terms of its location, though in the movie this is not spelt out explicitly. It is today considered Guru Dutt’s finest film – Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959), which was also the greatest commercial failure among his creations. In fact it so hurt him that he never directed another film, believing he brought bad luck. He produced films thereafter and in some such as Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam his touches are very evident, but the credit was always given to others.

Kaagaz Ke Phool (Paper Flowers) deals with the rise and fall of a celebrated film director and is set in the glory days of cinema studios. Much of its backdrop, though not all, is provided by Vauhini Studios, Madras, though strangely, its name does not feature in the casting credits. The very opening sequence, where an aged Sinha Sahab, the director, totters into the gates, is shot at the studio. And so are many other scenes, where you can see studio floors, cranes, arc lights, sheds, and a long driveway where props, scenery and often equipment are being transported. It shows us what was always referred to as Vijaya Studios, as it was in its heyday. The final scenes of Kaagaz Ke Phool too show the studios at their best and as the principal character rushes out of the gates, we get a fleeting glimpse of Vadapalani in the 1950s – not a soul anywhere and just coconut trees.

Incidentally, the most iconic scene of Kaagaz Ke Phool – the song Waqt Ne Kiya, with dust particles caught in rays of light even as Geeta Dutt’s (Mrs Guru Dutt in real life) voice sings in the background, was not shot here. That record goes to Modern Studios, Bombay.

For the record, Vauhini Studios was the facility of Vijaya Productions. Though they began separately, they were tightly intertwined by the late 1940s. The films that were produced by the Nagi Reddy-Chakrapani controlled units were always known as Vijaya Vauhini creations, and the vast precinct went by the name of Vijaya Gardens. This was also the home of that very popular children’s magazine – Chandamama, in all its languages. A few decades later, Vijaya-Vauhini would become South Asia’s largest film production facility. And then, hit by changing trends in cinema, it faded, leaving behind real estate that became hospital, hotel, and much else. Guru Dutt would have relished that, for he focused on dark themes.

The absence of Vauhini in the casting credits, and the name Central Studios, Bombay had me puzzled. And that had me rushing to young Shiva Reddy Chirla, who immediately asked his granduncle Viswanatha Reddy, whose father B Nagi Reddy owned Vijaya Vauhini. Confirmation was immediate. And I had one more confirmation – in his unique introduction to the cast and crew of Bommai (1964), the brilliant veena maestro and filmmaker S Balachander shows us a shot of Vijaya Vauhini and it is identical to what Guru Dutt depicts!