It is not very often that you wake up in the middle of the night, unable to sleep anymore, and you are glad to be awake. This happened to me more than a decade ago. For reasons unknown to me, I woke up at 4 AM and switched on the TV. The channel was DD Lok Sabha, and one of my favourite shows- Baton Baton Mein was being telecast. The show was hosted by Mrinal Pande, a renowned editor, writer and daughter of the well-known Hindi novelist Shivani. She interviewed people from different cultural fields and did an excellent job of it. She interviewed Gulzar Sahab, her guest for this particular interview. It was a delightful engagement. Two very soft, very talented people engaged in a very interesting tete-a-tete.

Gulzar Sahab needs no introduction and is one of my favourite poets. His real name is Sampooran Singh Kalra, but he is known by his pen name Gulzar. He is a versatile poet, lyricist, director, and playwright. Along with Ghalib, he holds the distinction of having countless fake couplets attributed to him that circulate on social media. In an interview, he commented on the phenomenon of fakes in his name – “Earlier I used to say 99 per cent poems on WhatsApp posted as mine are wrongly attributed to me, but now I can say for sure that 100 per cent of them are fake.” In his characteristic humour, he added in the same interview- “All I can say is that I am in exalted company. Pranksters have spared no one, not even Ghalib”.

Gulzar is equally popular for his nonsensical lyrics, such as “Chaddi pehan ke phool khila hai.” I have heard and read Gulzar Sahab numerous times, but this conversation with Mrinal Pande was special. He discussed the horrific experiences of Partition, as well as his writing for films such as Bimal Roy’s Bandini and Vishal Bhardwaj’s Kaminey. Discussed working with Sanjeev Kumar, Naseerudin Shah, Ghalib and his other works. There was one part of his conversation in which he quoted from his TV serial Ghalib featuring Naseeruddin Shah. I remembered that scene as I have seen and enjoyed that serial many times. In the sequence, Ghalib tries to explain his relationship with God to his wife. It may not be the exact version, but something like this- Ghalib tells his wife that his relationship with God is a little different from hers. It is like father and son. He asks, Have you ever seen children begging for something from their parents? They demand and insist.

I realised that it is people like Gulzar who reassure you that you can think objectively if you have been brought up well, even if you have suffered communal violence. One of my favourite Gulzar poems, especially relevant in the vitiated Indo-Pak atmosphere-

Subah subah eik khwab ki dastak par darwaza khola,

dekha, sarhad ke us paar se kuch mehman aye hain.

Aankhon se manoos thay saray,

chehray saray sunay sunaiye.

Haath dhoye, paon dhulaye, aangan main aasan lagwaye,

aur tandoor pe makki ke kuch motay motay rot lagaye.

Potli main mehmaan mere kuch,

pichli faslon ka gurh laaye thay.

Aankh khuli to dekha ghar main koi nahi tha,

haath laga ke dekha tandoor abhi tak bujha nahin tha.

Aur honthon par meethay gurh ka zaiqa ab tak chipak raha tha.

Khwab tha shaayad,

Khwab hi hoga

Sarhad pe kal raat suna hai chali thi goli,

Sarhad pe kal raat suna hai

Kuch khwabon ka khoon hua hai.

Text and photos by Prerna Jain.