ज्ञान दत्त

Gyan Dutt (born Janan Dutt to a Bengali family in Bangalore) was a Hindi-film music director and singer who became one of the most prominent composers of 1930s-40s Bollywood. On the advice of friends who felt his birth name sounded too rustic, he adopted the name "Gyan" for his film career. He joined Ranjit Movietone as a staff composer and made his debut scoring Jayant Desai's Toofani Toli (1937), going on to compose for around a dozen Ranjit productions over the following years, including Bazigar (1938), Gorakh Maya (1938), Nadi Kinare (1939), Thokar (1939), Sant Tulsidas (1939), Achhut (1940) and Musafir (1940).

Alongside Khemchand Prakash, Gyan Dutt was the composer of choice for the era's two biggest singing stars, Kundan Lal Saigal and Khursheed Begum, and his music was considered close to a guarantee of box-office success. His biggest hit came with the devotional film Bhakt Surdas (1942), for which he composed fifteen songs. He also scored Geet Govind (1947) and Sunehre Din (1949), the latter starring a young Raj Kapoor. In 1948 he gave an early break to singer Geeta Roy (later Geeta Dutt), composing songs for her in Chanda Ki Chandni and Hua Savera; their most significant collaboration came with Dilruba (1950), where six of the eight songs he composed were solos sung by her. Other singers who recorded under his direction included Mukesh, Shamshad Begum and, on one occasion, Lata Mangeshkar.

Gyan Dutt's commercial fortunes declined after the success of Sunehre Din, and later films such as Ghayal (1951), Gul-E-Bakavali (1956) and Daryai Lutera (1952) did not repeat his earlier box-office impact. He continued composing until Janam Janam Ke Saathi (1965), his final film, closing out a career spanning nearly three decades. Gyan Dutt died on 3 December 1974.