New Delhi, July 9 -- Legendary filmmaker Guru Dutt whose birth centenary (July 9 ) is being recalled with nostalgia and deep affection by film afficionados, died in a tragic manner on October 10, 1964. Was it suicide or an accidental overdoes of sleeping pills ?

This gifted auteur would have turned 40 a year later but his life was cut short - perhaps by his own despair and despondency and the many vicissitudes that punctuated his personal life and professional trajectory.

An auteur filmmaker

The most celebrated films in the Dutt oeuvre - Pyaasa (1957) and Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959), explored themes of unfulfilled love, societal alienation and the struggles of the human spirit, earning him recognition as the unsung poet of Indian cinema. TI...