Gulzar’s fame, by and large, rests on his contribution to Hindi cinema, both as a lyricist as well as a filmmaker, but it is in poetry that he is at peace with his heart and at his sublime best
Toot ki shaakh pe baitha koyee/ Bunta hai resham ke taage/ lamha-lamha khol raha hai/ Patta-patta been raha hai/ Ek-ek saans baja kar sunta hai saudaee/ Ek-ek saans ko khol ke apne tan pe liptata jata hai/ Apnee hee saanso ka qaidi/ Resham ka ye shayar ek din/ Apne hee tagon mein ghutkar mar jayega (Someone sits on the branch of a mulberry tree/ Weaves threads of silk/ Revels each moment/ Picks out leaves/ listens to each breath, the insane/ Unravelling, entangles himself in his own breath/ Prisoner of his breath/ This poet of silk, one day/ Will die strangulated by his own threads.)
— Portrait of a Poet, Gulzar
Gulzar, an eminent and an extremely popular poet of the modern times, voices his suffocating dilemmas in the process of his poetic craft in this poem. The poem Portrait of a Poet describes the world of a poet which entails upon him his compulsions to embrace the struggle to create beauty and freshness painstakingly, in the process imprisoning him in his own aesthetic grandeur.
All of us know Gulzar as one who dons many hats — that of a lyricist, filmmaker, dialogue writer, poet, translator, writer of slogans and anthems. It can be said that he is a wordsmith, a contemporary Hindustani poet, largely known for his film poetry, who comfortably stands on the crossroads of high and popular culture. For him, these two lanes are complimentary to each other as he successfully blends and juxtaposes the two with his sharp poetic craft. Although his fame, by and large, rests on his contribution to cinema, it being a more popular medium, he has a body of significant work in the literary arena as well.
Gulzar is first and foremost a poet and it is poetry that permeates through whatever medium he chooses to showcase his creativity. The poetry of his literary anthologies and the poetry that he uses in his cinema complement each other and the reader gets an opportunity to interact with the different facets of his creative persona. Gulzar writes in Hindustani, and the published works are found both in the Persian as well as the Devanagri script. Both the choice of language and the script are mainly due to a desire to reach out to as many people as possible. He effectively represents the multicultural fabric of the country through different genres that he indulges in.
What comes across as a distinctive quality between his writings and that of his contemporaries is his signature style of his unusual way of using imagery. Apart from the usage of unusual images, their juxtaposing with equally uncommon images stand out.
Ek sabab marne ka, ek talab jeene ki/ Chaand pukhraj ka, raat pashmine ki (A reason to die, a craving to live/ A topaz moon, a warm, cosy night.)
Although his ‘entry-pass’ to Hindustani cinema is Bandini’s (1962), Mora gora ang lae le/ mohe shyaam rang dae de (Take away my fair colour/Give me the dark skin of Krishna), the song that brought him to limelight was Khamoshi’s (1969) Humne dekhi hai in aankhon ki mahakti khushboo (I have seen the fragrance of your eyes), for use of the so-called ‘unconventional imagery’. If he was criticised by some, he was applauded by others. Whatever the case may be, he surely was noticed.
Coming on to his use of imagery, if one has to take a single example of an image that Gulzar writes on, and emphasise on the different ways he looks at that image, it has to be that of the moon: Chaand jitney bhi shab se chori hue/ Sab ke ilzaam mere sar aaye (For all the moons that got stolen from the night/ Blame for all came upon me).
For Gulzar, if the moon comes crawling on its elbows at one point — Aaj ki raat, dekha na tumne/ Kaise jhuk jhuk ke kohniyon ke bal/Chaand itne kareeb aaya hai (Did you noticeIJ/ Tonight, crawling on its elbows, / The moon has come so close), it is also perceived as a sad figure, a ragged cloth daaman-e-shab pe latakta hai chaand ka paiband (The moon hangs as a rough patch on the edge of the night). If he has talked of chaand ka teeka matthe lagaey ke (Bunty aur Babli, 2005), enshrining the moon on the forehead, as brides put their ritualistic teeka, giving a sublime touch, he has also ridiculed the moon and the night at certain other places, like in the song in his first directed film, Mere Apne (1971), where he says Roz akelee aaye/ Roz akelee jaye/ Chaand katora liya, bhikarin raat (Comes every night, alone/ Goes back every night, alone/ Moon like a begging bowl, on each beggarly night). The moon has been described in innumerable ways and manner.
Adding to his style of using an image in its myriad ways, Gulzar also uses the most common, mundane images, mixes them with generally unusual ones, transforms and turns them into new images by taking them into new exotic realms. One can find mundane and varied images like kitchen utensils, a well, smoke and fog, dry leaves, newspaper and so on, in his poetry with a totally unusual poetic touch. No other poet in Urdu-Hindi literature has described the lover following his beloved to a khali rickshaw (an empty rickshaw) as Gulzar does in the film Satya (1998) song — Saara din mere peeche khali rickshaw sa phirta hai (The entire day, follows me around like a vacant rickshaw) or the popular song from Gharonda (1978) where he compares a day to an empty vessel, Din ek khali bartan hai, aur raat hai jaise andha kuan (day is like an empty vessel, night a blind well).
One can confidently say that Gulzar is a progressive poet in popular culture. Both his film and non-film poetry are progressive in nature and not only reach out to the masses, but at the same time, also complement each other. The depth of his poetry has solid roots in India’s rural and folk traditions as well as in the cultural and philosophical depths of the Indian thought. Even with reference to his use of language, he combs through the languages of different cultures and knits them together with his characteristic style. He believes that words not only have meaning but also sounds and fragrances. Gulzar chooses words from diverse languages used along with conversational and colloquial words, which do not hamper the aesthetics of poetry but helps the poet to reach out to his audience and the viewers. He effectively and successfully, travels through cultures and negotiates with uniqueness in language, constantly experimenting with imagery in poetry and cinema, through both continuities and changes.