Geetā Dutt (born Geetā Ghosh Roy Chowdhuri) (23 November 1930 – 20 July 1972) was a prominent singer in India, born in Faridpur before the Partition of India. She found particular prominence as a playback singer in Hindi cinema. She also sang many modern Bengali songs.

Biography

During Geeta's recording of songs for the movie Baazi, she met its young and upcoming director, Guru Dutt. Their romance culminated in marriage on 26 May 1953. Geeta went on to sing some of her best songs in his movies while continuing to sing in other assignments as well.

Geeta and Guru Dutt had three children: Tarun (b. 1954), Arun (b. 1956), and Ninā (b. 1962). Tarun committed suicide in 1985. Arun Dutt died in 2014.

In 1957, Guru Dutt launched a movie, Gauri, with Geeta as its singing star. It was to be India's first movie in CinemaScope, but the project was shelved after only a few days of shooting. By then, their marriage was on the rocks: Guru Dutt had got romantically involved with Waheeda Rehman, and Geeta had taken to drinking. The break-up of their marriage affected Geeta's singing career.

Meanwhile, in distant Bengal, Geeta Dutt's songs were on every Bengali cine buffs lips as her dulcet voice crooned for Bengal's Queen of Hearts Suchitra Sen in some of biggest hits of the late 50s. "Tumi je amar" (Harano Sur, 1957) caught the fascination of the youth, portraying a romance that was passionate yet dignified. With music directors Hemant Mukherjee (better known as Hemant Kumar in Bombay film industry) (Harano Sur) and Nachiketa Ghosh (Prithibi Amare Chaaye, 1957 and Indrani, 1958), Geeta Dutt came up with songs that were hauntingly melodious, youthful and heartwarming. At a time when Sandhya Mukherjee's voice was synonymous with Suchitra Sen, Hemant Mukherjee and Nachiketa Ghosh picked Geeta Dutt.

In 1958, S.D. Burman had developed discord with Lata Mangeshkar as a playback singer, and he attempted to work with Geeta as the main singer of his compositions rather than the upcoming Asha Bhosle who, he felt, was relatively raw. However, out of her personal problems, Geeta would not practice her art sufficiently and failed to meet Burman's demanding standards. (He and O.P. Nayyar then started to work with Asha and helped her blossom as a singer.)

Guru Dutt's magnum opus Kaagaz Ke Phool came in 1959 in which Guru Dutt himself starred in the lead role with Waheeda Rehman. The film was in a way reflective of his own views on life and the transitory nature of fame and success in the film world.

Geeta Dutt came up with one of her best renditions in the heart-rending "Waqt ne kiya kya haseen sitam," composed by S. D. Burman and penned by Kaifi Azmi where she poured out her pain, anguish and pathos in every word. However, the box-office disaster of Kaagaz Ke Phool (which is now considered a classic) left them shattered, financially and emotionally.

In 1964, Guru Dutt died from a combination of alcohol and an overdose of sleeping pills. (His death was widely perceived as a suicide following two earlier attempts.) Geeta then suffered a serious nervous breakdown and ran into financial problems. She tried to resume her singing career, cutting discs at Durgā Pujā and giving stage shows. She performed in a leading role in a Bengali movie, Badhu Baran (1967), and sang admirably Anubhav (1971), which was her final performance to the music of Kanu Roy as she died of liver cirrhosis in 1972, at the age of 41.