Dev Anand Remembers Guru Dutt article

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Laalit Lobo recently interviewed Dev Anand (does he need any introduction!) for a television show. They discussed in detail the golden era of Bollywood, particularly the people who made it the golden era. We'll post the entire interview in parts at DearCinema. Here's first of the series, where Devanand remembers Guru Dutt.
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He was a young man he should not have made depressing pictures...

Our friendship dates back to the Prabhat era..he was assistant director to a very famous director. I had just started as a leading man. I think if I can call anybody in the movie industry as my greatest pal it was Guru Dutt. And we struck a great friendship jaise langotiya yaar kehte hain hum jaise dost the. And we struck a deal over a glass of beer and then he said Dev..if I ever become a director you are my star and I said if I ever form a company and I invite a directory to direct a film you’re going to be THE one.

So I brought him in for Baazi so that type of friendship. Then he made CID, he invited me to do a picture. Then he made Jaal and then he branched off on his own.. made his own pictures starred himself. we branched off. I brought in my Vijay Anand for Nau Do Gyarah..

I was on the sets of Teen Deviyan and I was ghost directing for Amarjeet a friend of ours and I got a news that Guru Dutt is dead. I packed up.. I went straight to his house and I was the first man to see him lying on his bed. There wasn’t anybody in the room. I was the first man to enter the apartment and be near his body. and I saw him and his face was blue slightly. There was a glass of.... there was a blue liquid in a glass next to him and I think. I do not know what happened‘¦.it was a very sudden death. and I had met him 5-6 days earlier when he had invited me -come over let’s do a picture together but at that moment a I also realized when I saw that he was looking very frail very feeble...yellow on the face, he had lost his hair. This was not the same Guru Dutt because he had made some very beautiful films...the film that he made Kaagaz Ke Phool was a very brilliant film but it didn’t do well..and he could not take it after that he never directed a picture. so that was the start of his physical downfall. Even his creative downfall. Sad..

I think he was very melancholic. He was a young man he should not have made depressing pictures...Guru Dutt always made depressing pictures. I don’t know why because he was a brilliant man. He was a good thinker. He had that dogged perseverance to go on and on but he used to shoot a lot but when he found success he was wonderful, on top of the world and the moment failure hit him hard he could not take it. he was melancholic by temperament which is sad. He was a withdrawn man. He never came in the forefront but a good person. We were the same age..

(End of part I...)