India, July 12 -- An artist's work is often the best way to know their mind. But when a biography focuses on their work, it can offer a more studied gaze. With Guru Dutt's 100th birth anniversary just past - on July 9 - we recommend this week Guru Dutt: A Tragedy in Three Acts, by Arun Khopkar, the National-Award winning director, actor and author. An auteur in every sense, Dutt made sorrow and disillusionment seem poetic. Khopkar focuses on three of Dutt's films - Pyaasa (in which a poet deals with the world's cruel ways), Kaagaz ke Phool (about a film director's disillusionment and attempt to come to terms with failure), and Sahib Bibi aur Ghulam (a languid exploration of failed romance and marital loneliness) - to discuss the master of melancholia's craft and what it reflected of how Dutt saw the world around him and his own profession. Khopkar's book presents the ace film-maker as being shaped by his work as much as being its creator....