RMIM Archive Article "94".
From the RMIM Article Archive maintained by Satish Subramanian
#
# RMIM Archives..
# Subject: Gulzar - disillusioned director
#
# Posted by: buxi@ix.netcom.com (Guri)
# Source: THE HINDUSTAN TIMES, FEB.4, 1995
# Author: Pankaj Tuli
#
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Gulzar
DISILLUSIONED DIRECTOR
Pankaj Tuli
wonders whether an artistic genius like Gulzar has the
right to stop making films
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(Note: The poems and comments inserted by Guri are shown within "{}".)
The voice is feeble but different. The muffled undertones
want to be heard above the din of raunchy, hysterical sounds
- the noise of stardom, clinched formulas, hackneyed story-
lines and stale surprises. In short, the popular hindi film
with an occasional dash of some hummable number. But the
voice goes on and on till its owner is scared too that he
can't hear it any more. The voice could belong to any of
them - Shyam Benegal, Sagar Sarhadi, Mrinal Sen, Chetan
Anand or Gulzar... Especially Gulzar today is a disil-
lusioned man. The profesi onal in him has made him go on
rather reluctantly with his projects like a TV serial Kir-
daar or an occasional film on men like Pandit Bhimsen Joshi
and Ustad Amjad Ali Khan- But the poet in him has turned him
a bit inwards, a sort of a despondent, unassuming philoso-
pher, who thinks himself irrelevant in a milieu crowded with
the so-called exponents of popular taste. And popular taste
is not always good cinema, the great director feels. And so
he spends most of his time away from it, writing poetry in-
stead of script-lines, composing lullabies and other
kidstuff rather than creating charismatic numbers like Dil
Dhoondta Hai... "I love writing poems because this is a
fruitful digression from something that is disturbingly al-
ways around me...the things that should be valued are crum-
bling everywhere."
{reminds me of this poem he wrote 20 years ago:
Jee meiN aataa hai ke ik kaan meiN suraakh karooN
kheeNchkar doosree jaanib se nikaalooN usko
saaree ki saaree nichoDooN ye rageN saaf karooN
bhar dooN resham ki jalaayee huyi bhukkee inmeiN
kehkahaatee huyi is bheeD meiN shaamil hokar
maiN bhi ik baar haNsooN,khoob haNsooN,khoob haNsooN!
}
So Gulzar finds a happy refuge in the world of poetry - poe-
try that uplifts the visionary in him from the humdrum,
ennuied existence of a free-thinker, who thinks himself no
more wanted. No longer wanted to create one of those ever-
green experiences on screen Iike Mausam or Angoor. No longer
wanted to make even a serial like Mirza Ghalib,a deeply stu-
died tribute to a poet Gulzar idolises. Gulzar had once
penned a poem, which at one point describes a day in the
poet's life -
Aisa berang-sa, bemaani as benaam sa din .
Has the philosophy of a day extended to the vast stretch of
professional reality too? If it has, Gulzar has no earthly
reason to believe in it. He may feel despondent, disil-
lusioned but his millions of fans would ask him to explain.
Fans who are restless since there's no Gulzar film coming.
Restless because they love Gulzar-the poet, the director and
the man.
And what a perfect gentleman he is! Recently, GuIzar was in
Delhi to attend a seminar on the contribution of Urdu to the
Indian cinema. There were others like director Yash Chopra,
writer Javed Siddiqui and poet Sagar Sarhadi. All through
the seminar, one observed Gulzar loved to play the role of
an intelligent listener rather than an impassioned speaker.
He sat attentively, wrapped in an off-white shawI and look-
ing from far away one could see a week's worth of grizzly
white stubble on his sunken cheeks, the face looked rather
frail, but those deep eyes still spoke of a hope not yet
lost.
{
Aao phir nazm kaheN
phir kisee dard ko sehlaake sujaa leN aaNkheN
phir kisee dukhtee huyi rag se chhuaa leN nashtar
ya kisee bhooli huyi raah pe muDkar ik baar
naam lekar kisee hamnaam ko aawaaz hi deN
Aao phir nazm kaheN
}
I started (in the film-world) as an assistant to Bimal Roy,
and shared his deep appreciation of nature. My father knew
Faarsi and greatly inspired me towards poetry. I have always
tried to express my feelings with simple images. Subtle com-
plexities and tensions of a restless soul, when put in sim-
ple poetic images, are an answer to themselves.
{
AaD. se hoke ghane peDoN ke peechhe se kabhi
aur kabhi shehar ki deewaar se lagte-chhupte
haath meiN chaaNd ki chamkeeli aThannee lekar
ghar se bhaagee hai kisi mele meiN jaane ke liye
aah! ye chhoTi -si maasoom-si bechaari ye raat
jee meiN aataa hai ke bas haath pakaDkar isko
subah ke mele meiN le jaaooN, khilone le dooN!
}
Such simple imagery as one finds in Mere ghar aanaa zindagi,
Din khali khali bartan hai, Dil Dhoondtaa hai...comes only
to a born poet. And Gulzar believes in the soul which is at
once man's strength and weakness.
And it is not only words and images they suggest that Gulzar
has immortalised in his poetry. When one talks to him, one
can't help admiring the women he shaped as a director. And
shaped to perfection. Deepti Naval owes a debt of gratitude
to this mentor for what she is today for her role in Angoor.
Gulzar brought forth a different Meena Kumari through his
visual poetry in Mere Apne and made Sharmila Tagore do one
of her Iifetime roles in Mausam. Jaya Bhaduri (Parichay,
Koshish), Hema Malini (Khushboo",Kinara, Meera, Lekin),
Rekha (Ijaazat). Suchitra Sen (Aandhi), Dimpie Kapadia
(Lekin), Anuradha Patel (Ijaazat) or Shabana Azmi (Namkeen)
are all Gulzar's memorable creations. Not that Gulzar
created the artistes, he created those performances. Gulzar
brought out the best in them. This is what be does, he helps
artistes find themselves, as it were, for the first time.
And so, does an artistic genius like him have a right to
feel he matters no more? In fact, when one film in 2O now a
days is turning out to be a mad, frenzied prodct of a com-
mercially sick mind, the relevance of Gulzar becomes all the
more pronounced. It is unfortunate that one doesn't have
much to look forward to of GuIzar's works today. A
teleserial on short stories, titled KIrdaar may be telecast
soon. Om Puri plays the major character in all the 13
stories and the beauty of the serial is the reviva! of good
old Nadira. She plays the role of an aging film actress in
the serial. But is this enoagh? Occasionally, one hears a
Gulzar-written couplet for kids in Jungle Book or Potli Baba
Ki. Puppet films and animation films are GuIzar's major pas-
time. He writes them, adapts them from world classics and
sometimes lends his voice to a character that particularly
fascinates hin. And he doesn't regret not being part of the
'rat-race' to the 'box-office'. He doesn't need to- he is
right there in the front. He can still disprove the sug-
gested defeatist philosophy of a tired man in his own
couplet:
Raat ne phir runn jeet liya
Aaj ka din phir haar gaya
........................Nay, nothing has been lost yet!
--
guri
From the RMIM Article Archive maintained by Satish Subramanian