Pyaasa - Guru Dutt, Waheeda Rehman

Pyaasa, 1957
Director: Guru Dutt
Music Director: S.D. Burman
Lyrics: Sahir Ludhianvi
Playback: Geeta Dutt, Guru Dutt, Hemant Kumar, Mohammed Rafi
Cast: Guru Dutt, Waheeda Rehman, Mala Sinha, Johnny Walker, Rehman, Kumkum, Shyam, Leela Mishra, Rajinder, Mayadass, Mehmood, Radheshyam, Ashita, Moni Chatterjee

English Translation included.

The Encyclopedia Of Indian Cinema says this about Pyaasa:

Dutt’s classic melodrama inspired by Saratchandra’s novel Srikanta was the first in a series addressing the state of the nation and the displaced romantic artist (cf. Kaagaz Ke Phool, 1959). Vijay (Dutt) is an unsuccessful poet whose work is sold by his brothers as waste paper. Unable to bear the reigning philistinism, he elects to live on the streets where a young prostitute, Gulab (W. Rehman), falls in love with him and his poetry while Vijay’s former girlfriend Meena (Sinha) marries an arrogant publisher, Mr Ghosh (Rehman), for comfort and security. When a dead beggar to whom Vijay gave his coat is mistaken for Vijay, Gulab has his poetry published in a book which becomes a best seller. Everyone who previously rejected Vijay now gathers to pay tribute to the dead poet. Vijay disrupts the celebration with a passionate song denouncing hypocrisy and calling for the violent destruction of a corrupt world (Jala do ise phook dalo yeh duniya). According to Dutt the inspiration for this film came from a lyric referring to Homer: ‘Seven cities claimed Homer dead/ While the living Homer begged his bread’ (cf. his essay ‘Classics And Cash’, in Rangoonwala, 1973). The comic relief scenes with Johnny Walker as Abdul Sattar, an eccentric masseur, do not always fit smoothly into the rest of the film, but Dutt’s exploration of the tragic idiom is unprecedented in Hindi cinema and can be compared to some of Ritwik Ghatak’s work in the powerful use of a musical chorus and the presentation of characters as archetypes (Vijay repeatedly evokes Christ imagery, e.g. in the song Jaane woh kaise and his appearance at the memorial celebration). The film, shot mostly on sets, makes no specific reference to its location but audiences would be able to note the significance of Vijay as an Urdu poet belonging to a Bengali family or the figure of Mr Ghosh evoking a Calcutta or Delhi businessman. Several sequences testify to an astonishing cinematic mastery: the crane movements during Gulab’s tender and hesitant move towards a Vijay absorbed in his own thoughts (set to the song Aaj sajan mohe ang lagalo) or when Vijay staggers through the redlight district protesting (in the song Jinhe naaz hai hind par woh kahan hain) against the existence of such exploitation in a newly independent India.

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION:
The Indian copyright law:
http://copyright.gov.in/Documents/Cop...

INDIAN COPYRIGHT ACT, 1957 CHAPTER I Preliminary (f)
"cinematograph film" means any work of visual recording on any medium produced through a process from which a moving image may be produced by any means and includes a sound recording accompanying such visual recording and cinematograph shall be construed as including any work produced by any process analogous to cinematography including video films.”

"CHAPTER V Term of Copyright 26.Term of copyright in cinematograph films.
In the case of a cinematograph film, copyright shall subsist until sixty years from the beginning of the calendar year next following the year in which the film is published."

My words:
Indian film copyright (including video, dialog, music, lyrics, songs) lasts for sixty years and any film and its songs released more than sixty years ago is in the public domain. No extensions, no renewals, no exceptions. This film is no longer protected by copyright.