Kaleidoscopic but incomplete

Echoes & Eloquences: the life and cinema of Gulzar by Saibal Chatterjee

Rupa & Co., N. Delhi. Pages: x+266. Price: Rs. 795/-.

The Art of Biography/Is different from Geography/Geography is about Maps/ But Biography is about Chaps. ‘But what sort of chaps?’ one might well ask while recalling this ditty penned by the late British writer Edmund Clerihew Bentley. Certainly not ordinary ones, and Sampooran Singh Kalra aka Gulzar is a remarkable man in more than one sense. He is a poet of fine sensibility capable of conjuring up strong graphic imagery. He is a filmmaker whose movies stir up our souls and effervesce our emotions like only he can. He is reclusive and enigmatic but his works are eloquent. A man of fine tastes, he avoids harshness and yet his movies leave a powerful impact on one’s thought processes; the soft, understated dialogues, lyrics and portrayals keep echoing long after the theatre lights have been switched on.

As the cliché goes, creativity is intrinsic to all human activity. But what lends enough edge to some people’s works that they stand apart from the crowd? There is no easy answer as different ingredients decide the shape and substance of creative processes in different persons. In the case of Gulzar, perhaps, smoldering embers lit by several contrary situations and events set his emotions churning, leading to decoction of classy creative juices. He was a lonely child among a brood of nine siblings – the other eight were his step brothers and sisters. Nostalgia regarding his ancestral village of Dina in Pakistan, where he had spent a part of his early childhood, no memory whatsoever of his mother who had died when he was an infant, and the frightful impact of the Partition related bloody violence in Delhi’s streets combined with a difficult childhood to sculpt the worldview of young Gulzar. Add to that the fact that he was introduced, albeit inadvertently, to the works of such all-time great litterateurs like Premchand, Tagore, Sharatchandra etc, along with popular literature, when still in his teens, the seeds of exceptional creativity had been sown into a sensitive mind with fertile imagination.

Soon enough the creative juices began to flow in the form of excellent poetry which was duly published in such prestigious Urdu journals as Shama. His stepmother ended his college studies prematurely and packed him off to Bombay. This proved to be a blessing in disguise. He came into contact with the legendary filmmaker Bimal Roy and joined his team as a lyricist and assistant director, where he penned such memorable songs as Mera gora ang lai le mohe sham rang dai de… (Bandini) and Ganga aaye kahaan se… (Kabuliwala), among several others.

While mentioning his talent and accomplishments as poet, story writer, scriptwriter, composer and lyricist, Chatterjee has focused on tracing the evolution of Gulzar as filmmaker. His debut film Mere Apne (1971) portrays the angst and anger of youth in the 1960s, a theme he revisits in 1996 with Maachis. In both the movies the influence of the post-Partition street violence that the director had witnessed as a lad in Delhi could be discerned. Similarly, while analyzing his other movies like Achanak, Angoor, Koshish, Khushboo, Kitaab, Kirdaar, Khamoshi etc he dwells upon the influence of the filmmaker’s variegated experiences. The sensitive portrayal of women is traced back to the absence of mother’s love in his life. Again, Gulzar’s movies deal intrinsically with relationships wherein he rarely portrays female protagonists in dark shades. The attempt is more at understanding the female psyche than making value judgments.

Perhaps Chatterjee is right when he observes that Gulzar’s matchless cinematic style and metaphor render his movies immune to remakes. His unique comic sense manifests itself in Angoor as director, and as scriptwriter in movies like Chupke Chupke, Bawarchi, Golmaal and Khubsoorat. He also dwells, albeit none too comprehensively, on the process that enabled Gulzar to pen such subtly sensuous and sublime stuff as Humne dekhi hai un aankhon ki mehakti khushboo… (Khamoshi) as also the starkly temporal Beedi jalaiye le… (Omkara). Although Chatterjee has explored his films exhaustively enough there is not enough on his lyrics and non-filmy literary output. What yearnings led to the moon becoming a constant motif in his oeuvre? We get no insight into this aspect at all. Similarly, he deals at length with the classic TV serial Mirza Ghalib but ignores another cerebral creation Tehrir…Munshi Premchand Ki, a tele-series. But this is nitpicking really.

The biographer studiously avoids all controversies involving the living legend’s professional as well as personal life even as he touches several relevant aspects. He does allude to the insinuations of plagiarism vis-à-vis movies like Koshish and Parichay, and to the marital break-down; but, by and large, controversies have been avoided. This somehow makes the book more eulogistic than biographical in nature. The rose tinted smooth visage is prominent but warts and moles are missing. It’s like watching a kaleidoscope that does not show all the colors. Hope this eminently readable biography will present the complete picture in its next edition.