Gulzar: The string that binds us

The poet and lyricist, just nominated for the Jnanpith, rejected spurious romance and wrote with intensity and heart, says well-known Kannada poet, lyricist and writer Jayant Kaikini.

Gulzar is neither a name nor an adjective. Gulzar is a space that has nourished our sensibilities for six decades. He has uplifted cinematic images with his imagination and resonance as well as given a new rhetoric to Hindi poetry. Enduring the wounds of partition, his strife for human relationships turned his art into a way of life. Gulzar means a garden of flowers. In this garden, it feels like the plants are conversing with one another, swaying in their own silences. In listening to them, lies our well-being and the secret of becoming rasika. Here are some lines from his poems.

‘The sky went past us
looting a treasure from nature.’
— Khul Jaa Sim Sim

‘The syllables appear
like shrivelled, leafless sprigs.’ — Kitabein 

Kirtinath Kurtakoti, the renowned Kannada literary critic, talks about the need to humanise nature in poetry. No one does it better than Gulzar. Many poets still believe nature poetry is about details and description. 

Look at the tall deodar tree
Sometimes it wrapped the clouds
like a turban around its canopy.
Sometimes it wore them
like a shawl covering the body.
Stopping the winds with its arms,
It would sway and say:
‘If these legs weren’t rooted,
I would come with you.’
A neem tree was here
And it was in love with the moonlight. — Sabz Lamhe

I remember Kuvempu hearing a bird chirping and describing it as the chant of a tree in deep meditation. Similarly, K V Tirumalesh writes, “Trees break their silence when birds descend on them.”

The intensity and simplicity of Gulzar’s poems such as ‘Girahein’ (Weaver), ‘Alaav’ (Bonfire), ‘Toba Tek Singh’ (Manto), ‘Dastak’ (Knock), ‘Makaan Ki Oopari Manzil Pe’ (In the First Floor of the House), and ‘Bemani Si Cheez’ (Material of no Value) move us towards profundity. 

A recurrent longing in Gulzar’s poetry is to bridge the chasm we have created, and to break the loud silence. He pits the human creation of caste, creed and religion against nature’s idea of coexistence.

I had read very little Urdu and Hindi poetry. But whatever I had read, I felt was falsely romantic — written only to seek ‘waah waahs’, with their quatrains being far from reality. But when I was in Mumbai, I came across modern Hindi poems through Mukund Joshi, a close friend, writer and professor of Hindi. I realised that the writing of Nirmal Varma, Vijaykumar, and Srivastava was modern. Thereafter, as I read Gulzar’s poems, the prejudice I had once nursed against Urdu-Hindi poetry diminished. His romanticism is not about the writing style. It is neither narcissistic nor escapist. It embraces us with a deep desire to fill the gaps in society through our thirst for bonding. This is not just about human beings, but about all livings things.

‘The pages I turned with my fingers,
brought a new taste to the tongue’ — Kitabein

The fire loves the forest breeze,
Yet, it goes after the huts of the poor.
People aren’t holding any fire
Some are caught in the fire’s arms. — Fasaad 5

Why does the soldier’s widow
wash his uniform every day? — Triveni

‘I treasure a couple of agonies
in my heart. Like how others
treasure their jewellery.’ — Memory

‘Beyond this weak wall,
What is this dense silence settling down,
Who is that, sitting with his ears against the wall?’ — Khuda

The intensity in these lines is not romantic. Soulfully connecting with the streets, the homes, friends and relatives left behind by partition, praying for such a disaster to never occur again, form the essence of Gulzar’s writing. Ironically, his early poetry is more relevant today than when it was written. 

His film songs

Gulzar is one among the first few poets who introduced abstract poetry to Hindi cinema.

He continued the legacy of poets like Sahir Ludhianvi, Shailendra, Kaifi Azmi, and Majrooh Sultanpuri, with the same vigour, social concern and his own experimentation with words.

“I only like Gulzar’s songs” was what many youngsters said to impress their friends. Just like how chess players are said to be intelligent, people listening to Gulzar’s songs are said to have evolved taste. That is the kind of impact his writing had.

Gulzar wrote diverse songs for the films of four generations of filmmakers, from Bimal Roy to Vishal Bharadwaj, and they tell the story of the last 60 years in Hindi cinema.

Our memories are incomplete without these songs. Here are some memorable lines:

‘Don’t touch and accuse this of relationships’ (Hathon se choo ke ise rishtonka ilzam na do — ‘Hum ne dekhi hai’, ‘Khamoshi’, 1969)

‘Your mischiefs have a new way of spoiling me’ (Aapki badmashiyon ke ye naye andaaz hai — ‘Aapki aankhon mein kuch’, ‘Ghar’, 1978)

'Two hearts looking for a livelihood, looking for shelter' (Aabodana dhundte hai ek aashiyana dhundta hai — ‘Do deewane shaher mein’, ‘Gharonde’, 1977)

As a Kannadiga and Hindi music lover, I only partially understood Gulzar’s lyrics. This was because they were packed with unfamiliar and unusual words; yet I got a feeling that I had understood it all. ‘Dil dhoontha hai phir wahi’ (The heart yearns for those unhurried moments) from ‘Mausam’ (1975) gives me the same feeling as Da Ra Bendre’s ‘Jogi’. Being able to understand the first few verses gives me the same joy as understanding the entire song. 

‘My days and nights lie scattered,
like a broken necklace of pearls!’ — Triveni

Poetry is the magical string that binds scattered things and scattered people. My salutations to Gulzar, who continues to create such a space through his writings, his persona, his conversations and his films.

(The author is well-known Kannada poet, lyricist and writer of short stories)

(Excerpts from the Foreword to ‘Dastak’ and ‘Jai Ho’ – Books of selected poems and lyrics of Gulzar translated to Kannada by Lakshmikant Itnal )

(Translated from Kannada by Pranati A S)

Prolific lyricist

Born on August 18, 1934 in Jhelum district of present day Pakistan, Gulzar moved to Mumbai during the partition of India. He was married to actor Rakhee, and has a daugther, Meghna Gulzar, from her. He has written songs for about 147 films and directed 22 films and four TV serials. He received the highest award for cinema in India, the Dada Saheb Phalke award for lifetime achievement in 2013.

Jayant Kaikini’s 10 favourites

• Mora gora ang lai le (Bandini)

• Koyi hota jis ko apna (Mere Apne)

• Woh sham kuch ajeeb thi (Khamoshi)

• Anewala pal (Golmaal)

• Do diwane sheher mein (Gharonda)

• Dil dhundta hai phir wohi (Mausam)

• Satrangi re (Dil Se)

• Kajra re (Bunty aur Babli)

• Chod aye hum woh galiyan (Machis )

• Beedi jalai le (Omkara)