Only when you are gone.

Pyaasa (Hindi, Thirst; 1957)

Director, Actor: Guru Dutt

Legend tells of a certain wanderer who kept looking for the meaning of life in all the places. He meditated for hours, walked into the wilderness, exposing himself to the element of Nature and trying to seek answers in cemeteries and crematoriums. He would rub ash from funeral pyres to humiliate himself and consume the human flesh of the dead to crush his ego.

We can just imagine the treatment he would have received as a living being. Shunned by the public for his shabby appearance and bizarre behaviour, the general public would be mocking him and shrugging their heads in disproval.

This guy, Siva, must have found wisdom in his endeavour and started voicing his finds far and wide everywhere he went. Only after his death, people began appreciating his prophetic pearls of wisdom bit by bit. Before we knew it, the whole narrative started to make sense, and the rest, they say, is history.

Fast forward to the present, he is positioned amongst the highest of the pantheon of our existence. He is revered as God for his keen interest in seeking the truth. That is the problem with people. We never appreciate people in their lifetime. In fact, we vilify them and accuse them of many things because they dare to question the status quo. They dare to rock the boat.

In a sense, this 1957 movie takes a swap at society at large. It is post-Independent India. Times were hard, and the profit-hungry world had no time for writers and poets. Doing a 'proper' paying job is what everyone is seeking. In their books, writing poems is not a real job. Against this background, the hero, a natural poet, is admonished for being jobless. He is homeless and finds solace in the company of a prostitute. He meets his ex-college sweetheart, who is now married to a publisher. They had departed ways earlier in not the most pleasant circumstances.

Guru Dutt and Mala Sinha

The publisher husband befriends the poet and employs him as his assistant. He promises to publish his work. Even though the publisher enjoys the poems in the company of a writer's group, it never gets published. The prostitute, in the meanwhile, falls for the poet. And his ex-girlfriend, too, tries to rekindle their old flame.


In a bizarre twist of events and mistaken identity, the poet is mistakenly thought dead. The forlorn prostitute gets the poems published to rave reviews. The poet, who re-appear after a stint in a mental hospital, comes to claim authorship of the poems. The general public refuses to believe that a madman could have penned all that poetic lines. The poet and the prostitute leave to start a new life.

Only when the ex-flame leaves for a more affluent man and after spending time in a loveless marriage does she realise the poet's worth. Similarly, the general public vehemently refuses the poet's ability when he appears in flesh and blood.

Labelled as one of the 100s best Hindi films of all time, this movie is rife with many symbolism or 'easter eggs' as they call it. In one epic scene, the protagonist appears at an auditorium door with outstretched hands against a light beam. Ultimately, it seems like a silhouette of Jesus Christ on a crucifix. In his subtle way, the filmmaker hints that the poet had 'resurrected' from his death.

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