Words were boiling in me, says Gulzar

Dressed in his signature crisp white kurta pajama, noted lyricist and author Gulzar recently regaled the audience in the capital at a session titled Kitaben. He shed light on his growing years in the city after the post-partition era, his golden days in cinema, his undying love for languages and dialects, and more.

On his childhood Gulzar was a voracious reader ever since he was a child and would spend hours reading books that he couldn’t even understand at times. “There was no intention of learning; I just wanted to read as much as possible. My father used to run a shop in Sadar Bazar in old Delhi, and most of my time would go spending days and evenings at the shop, whiling away hours doing nothing. There was no electricity and just the chimney lantern, and during those odd hours of the day, one could not play cricket or gilli danda, nor was there anything else to do. I ended up reading crazily,” he shared at the Penguin Spring Fever literary festival and added, “I clearly remember the pain of partition; the whole of Delhi was seeing the struggle of refugees. We stayed near Roshanara Bagh, and the whole city appeared like a refugee camp. Schools were shut. People were trying to settle in, finding new jobs and trying their hands at different occupations. In one of these camps, I met a refugee who rented books for as cheap as 25 paise. Most of them used to be cheap thrillers, stories of witches, mysterious powers, or detective fiction stories. I found such novels very gripping and until the whole case of a detective was not solved, I would not leave the book. I became an obsessive reader and started crazily borrowing books from this refugee. He got fed up with me and one fine day, he handed over a tome and told me, ‘Don’t come back, till you finish this!’ The book was The Gardener by Rabindranath Tagore, translated in Urdu. It introduced me to the rich world of poetry and changed my reading habits.” Thus was born Gulzar, the poet. He recently released two books, The Gardener and The Crescent Moon, a compilation of poems from some of Tagore’s most famous collections of verses.

Gulzar, the lyricist To earn his daily bread, Gulzar worked as a car mechanic in Worli, Mumbai and used to pen poetry in his free time. “Poetry/words were boiling inside me just like aag par rakha hua ek patila, jisme paani khaul raha ho aur jab bhaap zyada ho jaye toh woh fadfadane lagta hai. The same was happening inside me. Words were looking for a vent. I felt that deep urge to express myself. I started writing. I used to put black ink on the author’s name in a book and write my name instead to check how it would look there — such was my passion! When I used to listen to the poets in other languages and the kind of appreciation they received, I wanted to be there on the dais and experience that myself,” he told the audience.

Bombay dreams Like any ambitious young man who comes to Bombay for the first time, the film bug bit Gulzar too. Making a modest beginning as an assistant to Bimal Roy, Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Hemant Kumar, he wrote his first song Mora Gora Ang Lai Le for Bimal Roy’s film Bandini. “Bollywood happened by chance. While I was studying at St. Stephen’s college in Delhi, my elder brother had already settled in Bombay. I was sent to Bombay, where I started living in one of the lodges owned by Bimalda (noted filmmaker) with my friend and director Debu Sen. Bollywood’s legendary lyricist Shailendra used to stay near our cottage and we started frequenting his place over chai and meaningful conversations around arts and cinema. Shailendra had a small tiff with S.D. Burman, and he left Bimal Roy’s film Bandini for a short while. He later coaxed me to meet Bimalda and write a song for his film. That’s how I got my first big break.” The poet had found his true calling, and there was no looking back.

Dialect dialectics Young Gulzar’s passion for literature blossomed through the works of legendary writers Premchand and Saratchandra Chattopadhyay. “As a child, I started memorising shers without understanding them, just to win the game of antakshari with friends or to give a befitting reply to my brother!” he shared. Later, the multi-linguist learnt Bengali to experience Tagore first hand. “I was always fascinated by the richness of Bengali as a language... main half Bangla toh bahut baad mein hua, after I married a Bengali girl. Agar aap Calcutta mein kuch din guzaar lein, toh aap Hindi bhi ‘bol bol’ karke bolenge, such is the effect of Bangla language on you!” he quipped.

He added, “I used to listen to the folk songs sung by the labourers coming out after their shifts at the Birla Mill near Sabzi Mandi in Delhi. It was so mesmerising to listen to their different dialects. Their words still echo in my mind and I use them in my writings. Apart from this I have always relished Bengali, Marathi and Rajasthani folk songs and written my verses in different dialects,” he said.

Ttem numbers and more The lyricist revealed that one of his most successful contemporary hits, Kajra re was inspired by the quirky couplets written behind trucks in India. He put forth, “If you look at the lyrics — ‘Zaalim nazar hata le/Barbaad ho rahe hain ji tere apne sheher wale’ or ‘Aankhein bhi kamaal karti hain, personal se sawaal karti hain’, they all sound like the quotes written behind trucks. The scene in the movie was such where Bunty and Babli come together at a highway dhaba, where all the truck drivers stop by. I coined the lyrics around the same.”

Revealing the inspiration behind another hit, Chaiyya Chaiyya, he said, “It was inspired by Bulleh Shah’s poetry which I used to listen to in gurudwaras when I used to stay in Delhi.”

Talking about the relevance of songs and item numbers in films, he concluded, “The item number is a relatively new trend that gives you some time to breathe, to take a break in a three-hour film! Earlier, songs were used as a bridge to join sequences, to gradually move from one scene to another.”