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(1930 - 1972)
 
About Geeta Dutt
   Early years of struggle

   Career in late 40's

   Career in early 50's

   Career in late 50's

   Career in 60's

   Last phase of her career
 
Personal Details
   Marriage to Guru Dutt

   Life with Guru Dutt

   Geeta and her Children

   Brother Mukul Roy

Geeta ji was blessed with a rich voice that was like an interacting instrument that at once mesmerized her listeners. She had such magic in her voice that charmed her listeners like a snake is charmed to the music of a been. She rendered songs from her heart making them so endearingly heart rendering. When she sang "Thandi Hawaa Kaali Ghata" you can feel the cool breeze of an overcast day. When she sang "Koi Door Se Awaaz De" you can sense the feelings of a hauntingly disturbed soul celebrating the resplendence of life on one side and yet lamenting setbacks on the other. As critic Subhash K. Jha puts it aptly "Geta Dutt's voice conveys the sweetness of honey and the pain of the bee sting."

Geeta Dutt was born into a rich zamindaar's family as Geeta Ghosh Roy Chowdhuri in Faridpur, East Bengal in 1930. In 1942, her parents shifted to a Dadar apartment in Bombay when she was twelve. Over there in their modest flat at Dadar, composer/music director Hanuman Prasad, overheard her singing and agreed to take her under his wings to provide her training with nuances of singing. Soon after this, he launched her in a chorus song in the movie "Bhakta Prahlad (1946)", where she had only a couple of lines to sing.

S.D. Burman heard Geeta ji's voice and immediately decided to have her sing in "Do Bhai". Geeta ji had this unconventional way of singing. The time was when most singing styles had origins of ghazals. Geeta ji who had this innate talent, with no formal training in singing of the type of songs that were in vogue at that time, introduced her own brand of appealingly fresh and free flowing style of singing. Her singing was based on instincts and spontaneity, guts and feelings, and love and pensiveness that resulted in breathing life and emotion into each song she sang.

Geeta Dutt's singing life was largely influenced by her personal life. While singing for "Baazi" she met the first time director Guru Dutt and later married him. During the romance and early years of her marriage she sang some of her best songs for pictures involved with Guru Dutt in one capacity or another. Some of the most beautiful romantic songs Geeta ji sang were during these days and they were spilled and richly splashed with her youthfully exuberant voice. On one side she sings "Babu Ji Dheere Chalna" and the next moment she scolds her lover by singing "Jaa Jaa Bewafaa". Next she entices her lover with the song "Hoon Abhi Main Jawaan". When he is crossed with her she begs by singing "Yeh Lo Main Haari Piya". This whole gamut of romantic spectrum emotional rainbow was never repeated

with such vibrant verve of vocals and velvety velocity of spells of splendor by anyone else before or after Geeta Ji.

Happiness of a blessed married life lasted only briefly for Geeta ji. She had differences with her husband and went through very troubled times. When Guru Dutt passed away in 1964, Geeta ji was shattered and suffered to no end.

The frenetic cadence of modern life that Geeta ji captured through her ceaseless spontaneity ceased to exist in 1972. But Geeta ji in a short and glorious span of only few years left us with a rich legacy of thousands of songs into which she breathed life with her unique ethereal voice that have stood the test of time and continue to enthrall generations after generations of fine music lovers all over the world.

Please click the links on the left for more detailed information on the life of Geeta Dutt.

 
 
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