Released in: 1957
Cast: Guru Dutt, Mala Sinha, Waheeda Rehmaan, Johnny Walker, Rehmaan
Director: Guru Dutt
Music: S.D. Burman
Lyrics: Sahir Ludhianvi
By far one of the most influential works of literary cinema in post-independence India, Pyaasa portrays the restless poet-protagonist Vijay (Guru Dutt) as an insatiable traveller longing to find a place where his sensitivity won’t be belittled
Spurned by his family, rejected by his girlfriend (Mala Sinha) who choose to marry ‘Money’ (a publisher played by Rehman) Vijay finds comforts in the arms of the prostitute, Gulabo (Waheeda Rehman).
Pyaasa represents the crest of a socially relevant cinema with enough angst to seem fiercely contemporary even now.