FIRST and foremost a front-ranking Urdu poet, Gulzar, the multifaceted genius, has worn many hats. A filmmaker of several meaningful and offbeat movies, a brilliant screenplay and dialogue writer whose many lines are etched on the memories of film enthusiasts, Gulzar continues to write songs with strong literary flavour that fit situations in movies like the proverbial glove.

But that is not all. Gulzar has made some memorable documentaries and TV serials (the one featuring Naseeruddin Shah as Mirza Ghalib, with Jagjit Singh reciting the master’s ghazals, being the most memorable) written short stories for Urdu literary magazines and stories and ditties for children. His linguistic accomplishments are no less amazing: Punjabi is the tongue he learnt to speak and Urdu the language he read and wrote in, followed by Hindi, English and Bengali.

In the Company of a Poet: Gulzar in Conversation With Nasreen Munni Kabir encapsulates the poet’s views on movies and his association with titanic figures. Kabir is no pen-pusher. Few writers know the Hindi film industry as well as this maker of the 46-part serial Movie Mahal for Channel 4 and writer of many books on personalities such as Lata Mangeshkar and Javed Akhtar.

The book also looks at Gulzar’s childhood and family. Though born in an enlightened Sikh family, after being uprooted by Partition, Gulzar shaved off his beard and cut his hair short.

As his mother died before his first birthday, Gulzar was brought up by his step-mother. When still quite young, his father had taken him to Delhi from Dina, his birthplace, and Gulzar was only able to visit it again after seven decades.

His adopted name and his habit of mouthing InshaAllah time and again make Muslims assume he is one of them. His fluency in Bengali gave film-maker K. Asif the feeling that he was from Bengal, until he heard him speak to his poet friend Sukhbir in chaste Punjabi.

Saibal Chatterjee’s biography of Gulzar was perhaps the best work on the poet, but it is now quite dated. So is the endearing work on her father by Meghna Gulzar. Much has happened since the books were published seven and eight years ago, which is one reason why Kabir’s work is so well-timed. The writer gets much out of Gulzar, who was christened Sampooran Singh Kalra. But that name has for decades appeared only on his passport and income tax returns.

In the Company of a Poet explores Gulzar’s passion for reading and his introduction to Bengali classics, thanks to their Urdu translations (he later translated Tagore into Urdu). We learn how an unwilling Gulzar was packed off to Bombay to live with his elder brother and make a ‘solid career’ for himself.

His family was opposed to his profession as a writer and his forays into film. His one big regret in life is that he was not able to meet his father before he died. Kabir includes a moving poem on Gulzar’s relationship with his father, titled “Abboo”:

Father –

There is much to say that is left unsaid

If you were here I would speak.

You were so despondent on my account

Fearing my poetry would drown me some day

I am still afloat, father.

No longer have I the desire to return to shore

That you left so many years ago.

— Translated by Kabir

Gulzar expresses the same kind of affection for his mentor film-maker Bimal Roy for whom he wrote his first song and whom he assisted until the great director died. Talking about Roy’s death, Gulzar said, “Losing Bimalda was devastating. I felt as though I had lost my father all over again.”

Kabir is able to draw Gulzar into a lively conversation, enabling us to hear about many people, their fads and foibles, and in some cases their eccentricities, particularly those with whom he was and in some cases still is very close. They include composers like Saleel Chowdhury, R.D. Burman (with whom Gulzar had a fruitful professional relationship) and A.R. Rahman and actors like Shammi Kapoor, Sanjeev Kumar, Naseeruddin Shah and Jeetandra.

For Dilip Kumar he said that “It was impossible not to like him,” and about Meena Kumari that “She did not become the character; the character would become Meena Kumari. Her personality was always there.”

His comments on movies — his and others — should interest enthusiasts of film craft and criticism. On the different approaches to penning poetry and lyrics for a film, Gulzar says, “When I write a poem, I do not have to worry about vocabulary because I know the reader knows Urdu well. But in film lyrics, I avoid Persianised words because they are not widely understood.”

A song, he adds, should be in keeping with the character who is supposed to sing it. For instance, he wrote “Goli maar bheje maein, bheja shor karta hai” (Shoot a bullet through the head; it is full of turmoil) for a trigger-happy gangster. “He couldn’t have sung a ghazal,” Gulzar said.

Comes alone each night, goes alone each day

The impoverished night with a crescent begging bowl

Comes alone each night, goes alone each day

(Excerpted from a song from Mere Apne)

An Urdu translation by Gulzar of Tagore’s poem “Gardner”:

Your questioning eyes are sad

They seek to know my meaning

As the moon would fathom the sea

Gulzar is known for never using unkind words for anybody, not even his fiercest critics. His relationship with his estranged wife Raakhi is one of friendship. They live separately but visit each other quite often. Their daughter Meghna and grandchild Samay are the centre of their lives.

Having won a record 21 Filmfare Awards, state awards, literary prizes and even an Oscar for the best original song, Gulzar remains modest. He didn’t even attend the Academy Awards function. That is Gulzar for you.

SOME MORE PEARLS

The official launch of Gulzar’s latest collection, Kuch Aur Nazmein, was to be held at the Karachi Literature Festival. Sadly, what would have been his first-ever visit to the city was cancelled.

Mumbai-based Farhana Mahmood, who has compiled this collection, has, for almost a decade, maintained a record of Gulzar’s poems, short stories, writings for children, film lyrics, screenplays, dialogues, scripts and TV serials. Gulzar’s strength as a poet is once again reflected in this collection comprising 66 short and some not-so-short poems which for one reason or another could not find space in his earlier four collections. The first poem titled after his birth place Dina (near Jhelum) is a reminder of what he often claims: “I think with my heart and not with my mind.” He also alludes to communal riots and uses the simile of two sheep whose horns are locked in a fruitless fight.

Gulzar personifies nature in all his poems. In one, for example, he says, “Holay, holay kalyon ki bund honton pe barsi thi shabnam” (Softly the dew fell on the closed lips of the buds). One can’t think of many poets who can use personification with such ingenuity.

Another poem from the collection, along with Verma’s translation, is:

Look beyond this closed panes, beyond the alcoves

At the green trees, the lush branches, the flowers

How silently it rains, ceaselessly.

Amidst all the noise, the people, and so many voices

In the depth of my thoughts, at another level somewhere

I think of you like the rain, falling silently.

— Asif Noorani

(POEMS)

Compiled by Farhana Mahmood

Maktaba-e-Danial, Karachi

ISBN 978-969-419-0446-04

92pp. Rs250