Monday, August 21, 2017

GULZAR: AN APPRECIATION POST

By Komal Badve (Team Creatives)

Links to the music referred to will be available at the end of the article.

One fine day, a little girl (now a friend of mine) ran up to a man wearing a white kurta and pajama, and hugged him tight thinking he was her grandfather. Unfortunately for her he turned out to be poet extraordinaire Gulzar. Fortunately for me, I found a great way to start this article.


Before becoming a writer and adopting the pseudonym ‘Gulzar’, Sampooran Singh Kalra worked at a garage in Mumbai where he used to touch up accident cars by creating shades of paint. “I had a knack for colours.” is what he once said. His career kick-started with him as a songwriter, with none other than S.D. Burman, for the movie Bandini. He wrote the lyrics to the timeless melody ‘Mora Gora Ang Lai Le’, sung by Lata Mangeshkar.


It was during the writing sessions of this song that he first met Panchamda, which paved way for one of the most fire duos in the Hindi film industry. For their first movie ‘Parichay’ Gulzar gave Pancham the first two lines of the song ‘Musafir Hun Yaaron’ to compose. Being the creative genius that he was, R.D. came up with the tune to this song while bathing. Gulzar never denies that the music for this movie was inspired by Robert Wise’s ‘The Sound of Music’. ‘Sa Re Ga Ma...’ being the Hindi equivalent of  ‘Do Re Mi..’, made the song ‘Sa Re Ke Sa Re’, Pancham and Gulzar’s answer to ‘Doe a Deer’.


Gulzar was particularly known and loved for the lyrics ‘Humne Dekhi Hai Un Aankhon Ki Mehekti Khushboo’ from the movie ‘Khamoshi’. The mixing of senses to create figures of speech is an art only he has mastered. He was also acclaimed for writing lyrics such as, ‘Waadion Mein Gunjti Huin Khamoshiyan Sune’.


Not only was Gulzar in close association with S.D Burman and Laxmikant-Pyarelal, but he has also worked with the likes of the more recent Vishal Bharadwaj and Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy. He wrote the lyrics for the famous song ‘Chaiyya Chaiyya’, based on the Sufi folk song ‘Thaiyya Thaiyya’ by poet Bulleh Shah. Gulzar also won an Academy Award for the song ‘Jai Ho’, in collaboration with A.R. Rahman.

On a concluding note, it fair to say that Gulzar gave this entire generation its childhood with the evergreen song in the link below. Try holding back the feels after this one –

Other links:






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