This write-up by renowned film critic and expert on old HFM, Subhash K Jha, came in a beautiful booklet which accompanied the 5 CD set "Legends".

I am reproducing the text here. I will try and scan the pics from the booklet.

Part-1

"Koi door se awaz de chale aao"..She calls us from somewhere deep in the forests of the afterlife, over and over again,singing songs that celebrate the resplendence and setbacks of life. In her voice we can hear the richness and depth of divine interjections.
From the recocheting angst of "Mera sundar sapna beet gayaa" to the commodious coquetry of "Koi chupke se aake, sapane sulake mujhko jaga ke boley ke main aa raha hoon"... Geeta Dutt's voice is forever tempting us with possibilities of a level of spiritual salvation that seems impossibly high.

Geeta Dutt, nee Roy, always aimed where the throat was in instrument of interaction with those invisible but ubiquitious forces of life and death which guide our lives. Her vocals went into those virgin areas of existence that enrich and nourish civilzation as a whole.

Part-2

Geeta Dutt was no ordinary artiste. In this anthology listen to the nightingale Lata Mangeshkar or the popular voice of today, Alka Yagnik, pay tributes to the arresting artistry of this singer who took the words of a song beyond the world as we know it into a hemisphere of supernatural beauty, and we get an inkling as to what makes Geeta Dutt so special.

No matter what she sang,she sang from the heart. She sang in no other way,because she didn't know how to.Geeta Dutt's roots as a singer reverted to the ancient and irrefutable traditions of the wandering minstrel's birdlike singing. Even if she sang like a particular,given situation such as was the case of "Thandi hawaa kaali ghata aa hi gayi jhoomke" or the ripely seductive "Mera naam chin chin choo" Geeta Dutt's singing effortlessly transcended the here - and - now of her vocals to ride the waves of eternity.

Part-3

Geeta Dutt's voice conveys the sweetness of honey and the pain of the bee sting. Her artistry was both the instrument and the fulcrum of reverberating life forces, all clamouring for attention in her throat and somehow coming together in a convergence that married spontaneity to an underlayer of effortless craft.
Born in Faridpur which is now part of Bangladesh on 26 November 1930, Geeta Dutt's fate was interwined with the composer Hanuman Prasad who actually discovered her.The story goes, that this seasoned musician chanced upon the raw and resonant voice of little Geeta Roy, almost like Guru Dutt trailing Waheeda Rehman as Geeta Dutt sang Jaane kya tune kahi for the actress in Pyaasa.

Part-4

One fine day Pandit Hanuman Prasad heard the voice and was hypnotized by its power. He followed the voice up a flight of stairs to Geeta Roy's residence in Dadar,Mumbai. On reaching his destination, Panditji met a young man who introduced himself as the singer's brother. The composer who had a keen ear for voices was convinced that Geeta had it in her to become a major singing sensation. He convinced Geeta Roy's father Devendranath Roy Chowdhary to let her sing in films.

That magical voice which later created so much beauty through harmony, sang for the first time in a chorus number in Dhirubhai Desai's Hindi-Gujarathi mythological Bhakta Prahlad. 13-year old Geeta had just one line to sing in Bhakta Prahlad. But it changed the course of her life.

Part-5

When the amazing Sachin Dev Burman heard that voice in Bhakta Prahlad he searched out the new singer's address. This was the year 1946, and S D Burman, already a huge name to reckon with in the film industry was working on an assignment Do Bhai. He convinced the film's producer Chandulal Shah, to give young Geeta a break.
Shah was uncertain. Geeta was just 16 and the voice sounded..Well, different ! As it ought to. Geeta followed none of the established conventions and time tested norms of singing. While the reputed singers of the era sang in Ghazal-motivated voices Geeta Dutt introduced a free flowing style of playback singing that relied on spnataneous expressions rather than trained vocals. Unlike the great voices of the 40's like Noorjehan, Amirbai Karnataki and Zoharabai, Geeta Dutt had recieved no elaborate training in singing. All she knew about singing was within her family fold in Bangladesh.

Well written pieces. Thanks Parag for taking the pain in sharing them.

Its my pleasure to share this Prosenjit. Its an elaborate article written by Subhash Jha ji, over 10 pages of the booklet. I am typing it out here in parts whenever time permits.

Regards
Parag

Part-6

'Mera sundar sapna beet gaya' and 'Yaad karoge' in Do Bhai immediately brought Geeta Dutt' voice to the forefront of playback singers in Mumbai. Today as we hear these two melodious memorabilia float across the soundtrack we're pervaded by a sense of gratitude for men like Chandulal Shah and Sachin Dev Burman who made it possible for a fresh innovative and painfully young talent like Geeta Dutt to express herself in the recording room.

Merit was the sole criterion for opportunity. The day Geeta Dutt recorded 'Mera sundar sapna beet gaya' is still a beautiful dream in the minds of those who were present on the scene.

Said the pragmatic producer Chandulal Shah to the adamant composer Burman,"If you insist on this girl's voice I am ready to go alongwith your choice, but I will keep the song only if I like what I hear." Burman pleaded with his Bengali protegee to please deliver the goods as required.

Part-7

When Geeta Dutt sang 'Mera sundar sapna beet gaya' the entire congregation in the recording room that morning listened in rapt attention. A singing star was born in Do Bhai. Thus ended the short period of uncertainty for this girl from a feudal family in Faridpur.

Geeta Dutt's father was the richest man in his area in Faridpur. Her mother was into fine arts. But among their ten children, Geeta was the only one who was inclined towards music and singing. Since Geeta's mother enjoyed music she encouraged Geeta to learn singing. A formal tuor was employed. While attending school, Geeta religiously practised her music for several hours each day. From the start she was a born singer like Lata Mangeshkar and she only had to hear the composition before she would start to hum and render it within no time at all.

Geeta Dutt- Roy and her family migrated from East Bengal to Mumbai. The Roys lost everything including property and wealth and had to start life from scratch in the new hostile city.

Part-8

Sure, Geeta could later laugh about life in the metropolis - 'Aye dil hain mushqil jeena yahan zara hat ke zara bach ke yeh hain Bombay meri jaan'. But life in those early days of struggle wasn't a joyride. Geeta Dutt went from studio to studio in search of work. Music lessons had ceased long ago. But Geeta had the inborn talent and the guts. Before every recording she consulted the lyricist to make sure she understood each word in the song. Then she rehearsed with the composer. Only then she was ready to face the microphone. She never needed too many rehearsals. Her grasp of the nuances in a tune was legendary. She could sing in a multiplicity of languages including Hindi, Bengali and Gujarathi in a jiffy. She could change from the melancholic 'Yaad karoge' to the frolicsome 'Mast chandani jhoom rahi hain' like a fashion model changing from one costume into another in the blink of an eye.

Part-9

There is a quality of celebrity in Geeta Dutt's singing that blended effortlessly with the emotional depth of her singing , to give us tunes that were timeless tombs of expressiveness.

1951 was a landmark year for the sprightly-throated songstress. It was the year of Baazi. The year of S D Burman's seductive 'Aaj ki raat piya', the coltish 'Suno gajar kya gaaye' and the provocative 'Tadbeer se bigdi hui taqdeer bana le' each more monumentally mounted than the other to challenge the status quo.

It was the year when Geeta Roy met her future husband Guru Dutt who was the director of Baazi. When Guru Dutt's mother heard the young Geeta singing 'Tadbeer se bigdi hui' she was immediately enchanted. Geeta became a regular visitor at the Dutt's residence. Though a huge star-singer with an awesome fan following, Geeta moulded herself as part of Guru Dutt's household as though she was born in it.

Part-10

Even today everyone vouches for her sweet temparament, her lack of artificiality and affection and her complete candour. Members of Guru Dutt's family still remember how she would take down the harmonium from the shelf and sing Bengali songs.

It was only a matter of time before Guru Dutt fell head over heels in love with his regular visitor. They were married on May 26, 1953. Thus were born some of the most achingly romantic songs of the 50's - those nuggets of love and its various facets which materialized because there was love in the air.

Guru Dutt and Geeta Dutt formed a perfect team. He knew exactly how to use her voice and he used it in ways, so that her inane generosity of spirit spilled over on the soundtrack in stunning romantic declarations. 'Hoon abhi main jawan', 'Jaa jaa jaa bewafa', 'Babu ji dheere chalna' and 'Yeh lo main haari piya' in Aarpaar were like prolonged outburst of harmonious sensations. Even today Geeta Dutt explodes on the streamlined soundtrack with a velvety velocity.

Part-11

Her sense of rhythm and cadence was impeccable. Flawlessly and effortlessly she immersed herself in the machinations impulses of a tune. As we hear her sing we feel that she was born to sing whatever she sang. The mood of saucy romance the pervades the films Aar Paar or Mr and Mrs 55 owe a lot to Geeta Dutt's vibrant vocals which seize the soundtrack in ceaseless spells of splendour and sublimity.

Guru Dutt's Mr and Mrs 55 came one year after Aar Paar. One still recalls Madhubala 'singing'Thandi hawa kaali ghata by the poolside with a heavy of smiling chorus girls twirling their umbrellas and singing along the sinewy song with Geeta's everrespledent voice.

Try putting any face but Madhubala's in 'Thandi hawa' and try putting any voice but Geeta Dutt's on Madhubala in this song and you'll find yourself at a loss.

Part-12

Whatever Geeta Dutt sang she sang to everlasting perfection. Whether singing the naughty 'Dil ki umagein hai jawan' with Hemant Kumar in Munimaji or the nubile 'Udhar tum haseen ho' with Mohd. Rafi for O P Nayyar in Mr and Mrs 55, Geeta Dutt created a galactic circle of light hearted songs in the early and late 50's. We can hear a galaxy of her glorious light footed efforts in the 5 CDs of this collection. Songs that make us hum with pleasure and purr with passion.

The collection shoots down the erroneous belief that Geeta Dutt excelled only in the films of and by Guru Dutt. Certainly not ! She was the queen of the crooning kingdom. Listen to her as she creates a dynamic to-do in 'Mera dil meri jaan' in Aab-e-hayat, 'Banki adayen' in Amaanat, 'Dil de dala nazaran' in Musafirkhana and 'Ban dhadkan' in Miss Coca Cola. Even in these relatively lesser known numbers, Geeta Dutt sparkles with dynamism.