CRITICAL ACCLAIM OF SOME OF GULZAR’S WORKS - I

So this morning started off pretty nicely. As usual, the peace and quiet of the morning snowballed into a mad rush for office. In the background, the radio was belting out nice Marathi numbers – not the recent, larger-than-life ones, but the old ones written and sung by maestros. Anyways I was contemplating about my to-do list today after checking up office mails. Suddenly then surrealistic words from the radio woven into melodious music stopped me into my tracks. The RJ announced the word ‘Gulzar’ and it was enough for me to give my usual dingy bus a miss.

Just listening to back to back awesome numbers penned down by this legendary lyricist, poet, director, storywriter – whatever you call him, leaves you with a soothing feeling that takes you away from the nonsense noise which is prevalent everywhere you go. Be it newspapers or today’s hip radio stations or any sort of electronic media – the mad din is everywhere. In such times, the songs of Gulzar gain even more importance for a mind who seeks inner peace. That’s because, any song of Gulzar you take, it always has two qualities – beautiful and more importantly ‘meaningful’ poetry and some awesome music from none other than RD Burman who plays another vital role because it’s the collaboration of beats and words that touches the minds of the listener. Words and music when go hand in hand, they create an altogether different confluence.

Over the years, I have grown up listening to Gulzar’s songs – be it ‘Is mod se jaate hain’ from Aandhi or ‘Tujhse naaraz nahi zindagi’ from Masoom to the most recent one ‘Dil toh baccha hai ji’ from Ishqiya. The master of words just never ceases to astound us. Some of the finest poetry which he has penned goes like this –

         Ek akeli chattri mein jab aadhe aadhe bheeg rahe the

         Aadhe sukhe aadhe gile, sukha toh main le aayi

        Gila man shayad, bistar ke paas pada hai..

        Woh bhijwa do..mera woh samaan lauta do..

This one from the 1986 movie Ijaazat, fetched him the National Award. What I really love about his songs is that they talk about the daily life which for most of us, seems to be quite melancholy and mechanic. In the mad rush of life, we tend to lose out on the small things. These small things, knowingly or unknowingly have some effect on our lives, on our personalities, on what we are truly and what we become ultimately. Gulzar puts a finger exactly on these small things. For instance, this one from the Amol Palekar starrer original Golmaal essentially summarizes the Eternal truth which the Buddha practised –

       Aaanewala pal jaanewala hai

      Ho sake toh isme zindagi beeta do..pal jo yeh jaanewala hai

Other soulful renditions such as O Majhi Re from the 1975 movie Khushboo or Tujhse naaraz nahi from the 1983 Shekhar Kapur directed classic ‘Masoom’ are some of the tracks which are still played almost every alternate night on popular radio stations. While Tujhse Naaraz.. describes the inner struggle of a father who is trying to bond with his now orphaned kid, born out of a love affair and not from a legitimate marriage, O Majhi Re captures the wanderlust present in every one of us with words like –

      O Majhi Re..apna kinara..nadiya ki dhaara hai..

The O Majhi Re is such an excellent song that till date serious playback singers cannot resist from singing or mixing this one with other folk songs. This is what exactly Shaan did last week on the MTV Coke Studio Season 1 and I think it was a pretty good attempt. Kudos for that!

In Masoom, Gulzar very poignantly describes the struggle of the father played by Nasseruddin Shah where he is constantly demanding answers from life whether the joy of spending good time with his kid is moral or the social stigma of accepting the responsibility of this love child is immoral. This constant burden of leaving a child to live a life on his own is subtly woven into words such as –

        Jeene ke liye socha hi na tha, dard sambhalane honge

        Muskuraoon to, muskurance ke karz utaarne honge

        Muskuraoon kabhi toh lagta hai

        Jaise hoton pe karz rakhaa hai

              

It’s a daunting task to cover all the aspects of such great minds like Gulzar in couple of paragraphs. For more poignant and at times hard-hitting poetries, see you in the next part of Gulzar’s work.