India, July 4 -- On the morning of October 10, 1964, Guru Dutt was found dead in his flat in Bombay, lying on his bed in a crumpled kurta-pyjama.

He had drunk a glass of pink liquid, sleeping pills crushed and dissolved in water. He had turned 39 in July.

This was his third suicide attempt. His first was at the peak of his career, while directing and starring in Pyaasa (1957), a classic that is considered his greatest film.

What was it that haunted this young man? Biographers have been trying to answer that question for decades.

It was as if success drew him deeper into himself. In her book Guru Dutt: A Life in Cinema, Nasreen Munni Kabir quotes his brother, the filmmaker Atma Ram, as saying: "He was quite social in his early days. ha...