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We asked poets published in Gulzar’s phenomenal collection A Poem a Day to share their tributes for the Jnanpith winning icon.
Here’s what they had to say:
Tabish Khair
There can hardly be an Indian interested in literature and film who would not recognize Gulzar Sb from a distance. As such, I spotted him the moment I walked into the inaugural party of a literary festival in Patna about a decade ago. I was one of the many invited writers, and Gulzar Sb was one of the few stars. There was a crowd around him. As is my policy, for the Indian English scene is a subtly status-conscious one, I stayed in my corner of the room, afraid that if I joined the crowd around Gulzar Sb, I would be met as just another celebrity-seeker, not as a fellow writer. Imagine my surprise when Gulzar Sb spotted me and immediately crossed the room. Addressing me in mellifluous Urdu, he told me that he had been looking for me, and that he had translated a couple of my poems for inclusion in an anthology. This, I realized, was a characteristic of Gulzar Sb: he is not just a remarkable film-maker, poet and writer, he is also a remarkable human being. It makes him very special.
Abhay K.
Gulzar Saheb was very kind to translate my poem ‘Shanti Path,’ which he selected from my poetry collection The Seduction of Delhi (Bloomsbury India 2014), into Urdu and include it his ambitious anthology A Poem A Day published by HarperCollins India. I felt immensely honoured and exhilarated that my creative work was selected, translated and included by a legend like Gulzar Saheb in an all-encompassing anthology which featured 365 poems from 34 Indian languages written by 279 poets. My poem in original and in Urdu translation featured at number 172. And it all happened anonymously, I had not met him before. So it felt even more special. Long after publication of the book when I met him finally at Jaipur Lit Fest 2023, I personally thanked him for his kindness.
YATINDRA MISHRA
Writing Gulzaar’s biography was like knowing an entirely new landscape. I thought I knew him well, but was I wrong!
As I began to study his work, including watching the films written or produced by him, to prepare for this book it seemed I was walking into a wonderful maze. As I looked at his poems, snippets of film songs echoed; I looked at the stories only to be called back by the film scripts…for every other film of his era he wrote dialogue or script or songs. And many are the films for which he did the script, dialogues and songs, and even directed them. There were times when I thought Gulzar had nothing to do with a particular film…only to realize that the lyrics for one song were by him. I realized Gulzar’s biography is a bottomless well.
Gradually, understanding Gulzar and writing about the various aspects of his life led to unforeseen explorations because each question gave rise to new questions. For me, Gulzar has so many facets to him that it is a challenge to understand him completely. To capture his charm, his magic, his simplicity and his temperament is like a child’s effort at catching a gorgeous butterfly. If I have been able to catch a glimpse of the butterfly it goes without saying that this journey has been through rich flowery meadows. In this journey, many have been the times when the fragrance of blossoms has led to nights of deep contemplation.
ARUNDHATHI SUBRAMANIAM
I’m afraid I don’t really know Gulzar saab. The loss is, of course, entirely mine. For he is obviously a man of considerable charm—not flashy, attention-seeking charm, but the elegant charm of old-world understatement and reticence.
We have spoken just once, and it is on an occasion that he certainly won’t remember. It was at a Sahitya Akademi event in Goa many years ago where we happened to share a platform. After the session, there was much jostling by the poets on stage to get his attention, and be photographed with him. I noticed that Gulzar saab himself remained remarkably untouched by it all. He saw me standing on the sidelines, and came up and talked to me about my work in his characteristically quiet, softspoken manner. This refusal to exude a sense of self-importance and this ability to see through the hustle of the cultural world, left an abiding impression on me. It reminded me of what TS Eliot once said was vital to a poet: the need to ‘escape from personality’ rather than flaunt it.
When I was editor of the India domain of the Poetry International Web, I carried an interview with Gulzar (conducted by Salim Arif) on my website. One of the lines in that interview has also remained with me: ‘I started with literature but met a maikhana (tavern: read ‘films’) on the way.’ He was remarkably candid in his reflection that his movie association was, in some ways, ‘a handicap’, for it meant he was often ‘regarded as a film songwriter who fancied himself a poet.’ Those lines were telling, and offered me an interesting insight into what it meant to be Gulzar—hugely impactful in the cultural imagination of a subcontinent, and yet, seemingly damned with faint praise by those in the literary salon. I remember him saying that the Sahitya Akademi award was particularly important to him because it spelt an acknowledgement of his literary abilities. Today, it makes me particularly glad that the Jnanpith has come his way.
I was touched when Gulzar saab chose to translate my poem, ‘Printer’s Copy’ for his book of Indian poetry. It was a poem I wrote soon after the death of the other noted Indian poet, Arun Kolatkar. It tells of the ‘ailing poet’ who works on tweaking line lengths and chiseling phrases right up to the time of his death. It is an affirmation of the power of poetry—the octane inherent in language to ‘gallop, dive, scoop, abduct, rescue’ reader and writer ‘in the long hard ride into the sunset’. The fact that Gulzar selected this was, to my mind, a reminder of what unites poets, across barriers of language and cultural domain: the need to resist the tyranny of slogans and cliches, and the impulse to wrestle with the resources of language until the very end.
I have no doubt that Gulzar saab’s verse will continue to inspire, provoke and rescue readers for decades to come, bringing them the startled joy of recognition that only the finest poetry is capable of.
About the Book - A Poem a Day
A Poem a Day is a volume of Indian poetry like no other, selected and translated by Gulzar, one of Indias most renowned and respected poets. This prestigious volume showcases 365 memorable poems a poem for every day of the…
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