Let Me Give The Blooming Garden The Praise It Deserves

 Talking About Gulzar

Ali Peter John

I may have been and will always be a worshiper of the two great men in my life, K. A Abbas and Dev Anand, but I can never forget how i was a very crazy fan of this man and poet and writer and filmmaker called Gulzar, if I may say so, the first man I know who gave himself the name Gulzar, as his original name was not so poetic. I grew into a fan of his when i was in my first year in college and wanted to write like him, dress up like him, have a stubble like his, walk like him, talk like him, drink tea like him and have a crowd of female fans like him. I couldn't even be one nth like him, but I considered myself very fortunate that I was very close to him for more than 30 years of my life and I had this feeling that he was like a creative from some other planet and was send to earth like a blessing..

I believed in what I believed about him till 30 years later, I had the misfortune of knowing the other side of him which I realised was not only very bad but was also very ugly. I gave myslef sometime to calm down before I could pass my final judgement on him. But it was a case of dil hai ke maanta nahi for me. I just couldn't forgive him for not betraying me, but for betraying all the millions of feelings I had nurtured for the man who I believed was a garden of feelings himself.

It is strange that I who once used to love walking in his shadow now love to walk as far away as possible from him. Some days ago, I was passing by his bungalow, "Boskyaana " and a thousand memories crossed my mind. But I didn't feel like talking.  His driver, Sundar asked me why I was not coming to Boskyaana like I used to once and I only could give him a sad smile which he understood and said, "Accha kiya aapne, woh admi bogus hai sahab" and the man was saying this after working  with the poet and sometimes even for his separated wife Raakhee for more than 35 years, and I walked past only to feel more sad to see the bungalow of Rishi Kapoor and Neetu Singh gone to the dust.

As I have been trained by my guru, Abbas Sahab, I suddenly feel that I should give credit to the man who has achieved, so much, so much in just one life. As Gulzar will soon be 86 years old, I wish to place on record his valuable contribution to Indian cinema and I must thank Bharat Athvanker for presenting facts known and unknown about the man who has reached a place on a very high pedestal from the place he used to lie under a car where he used to take care of a sick car and try to give it a new life, in short, a time when he was just a car spray painter and a car mechanic.

The multi-sprayed achievements of just one man.

Sampooran Singh Kalra (born 18 August 1934), known popularly by his pen name Gulzar and also Gulzar Saab, is an Oscar-winning Indian film director, lyricist and poet.Born in Jhelum District in British India (now in Pakistan) his family moved to India after Partition.

He started his career with music Director S.D.Burman as a lyricist in the 1963 film Bandini and worked with many music directors including R.D.Burman, Salil Chowdhury, Vishal Bharadwaj, Laxmikant Pyarelal, Shankar Ehsan Loy, Anu Malik, and A.R.Rahman. He was awarded Padma Bhushan in 2004, the third-highest civilian award in India, the Sahitya Akademi Award and The Dadasaheb Phalke Award— the highest award in Indian cinema. He has won several Indian National Film Awards, 21 Filmfare Awards, one Academy Award and one Grammy Award.

After writing dialogues and screenplay for films such as Aashirwad, Anand and Khamoshi, Gulzar directed his first film Mere Apne (1971). The film was rated "Above Average" at the box office. He then directed Parichay and Koshish. He wrote the story of Koshish based on the struggle faced by a deaf-dumb couple wherein Sanjeev Kumar won the National Best Actor Award. In 1973, he directed Achanak inspired by the 1958 murder case KM Nanawati versus State of Maharashtra, and the story writer K A Abbas earned a Filmfare nomination for Best Story. Later he directed Aandhi, based on the Hindi novel "Kaali Aandhi" by Kamleshwar. Along with various wins and nominations, the film also won Filmfare Critics Award for best movie. His next film Khushboo was based on Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay's Pandit Mashay. His Mausam which won the National Award for 2nd Best Feature Film, and Filmfare Best Director awards, along with other six Filmfare nominations, was loosely based on the story "Weather", from the novel, ' The Judas Tree' by A J.Cronin. His 1982 film Angoor was based on Shakespeare's s play The Comedy of Errors.

His films told stories of human relationships entangled in social issues. Libaas was a story of an extra-marital affair of an urban couple. Due to its objectionable subject, the film never got released in India. Mausam pictured a story of a father who tries to improve the life of his prostitute-daughter. In Maachis, a young Punjabi boy engages in terrorism to fight a bad situation only to realise its temporary nature. Hu Tu Tu dealt with corruption in India and how a man decides to fight it.

Gulzar uses "flashback" in the narration of his stories very effectively (Aandhi, Mausam, Ijaazat, Machis, Hu Tu Tu).

He also has mutual partnerships with various actors and other crew. The Gulzar – Sanjeev Kumar partnership resulted in few fine films (Koshish, Aandhi, Mausam, Angoor, Namkeen) which represent Sanjeev Kumar's finest work as an actor. Actors like Jeetendra (Parichay, Khushboo, Kinara), Vinod Khanna (Achanak, Meera, Lekin) and Hema Malini (Khushboo, Kinara, Meera) worked with Gulzar to gain respectability as artists and delivered some of their best and most introspective work in films.

R.D.Burman composed songs for almost all the movies directed by him in the 1970s and the 1980s (Parichay, Khushboo, Aandhi, Angoor, Ijaazat, Libaas). Many of their popular songs were sung by Kishore Kumar, Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle. These include "Musafir Hoon Yaron" (Parichay), "Tere Bina Zindagi Se Koi" (Aandhi), and "Mera Kuchch Saaman" (Ijaazat).

In 1988, Gulzar directed an eponymous television serial Mirza Ghalib, starring Naseeruddin Shah and broadcast on DD.

Gulzar has written lyrics and dialogues for several Doordarshan TV series including Jungle Book, Alice in Wonderland, Hello Zindagi, Guchche and Potli Baba Ki with Vishal Bharadwaj. He has more recently written and narrated for the children's audiobook series Karadi Tales.

Interestingly, Gulzar was also appointed the Chancellor of Assam University in 2013.

The late Bimal Roy was making "Bandini" and Shailendra was writing the lyrics for its songs. Sachin Dev Burman was the music director. There was some altercation between Shailendra and Burman, who then refused to work with Shailendra.

Bimal Roy was worried.  Somebody told him about a Sardarji,  *Sampuran Singh Kalra*, a motor car mechanic who had migrated from Pakistan who was looking for a chance to write lyrics. Motor mechanic who wrote lyrics? People asked in amazement but by then a desperate Bimal Roy said ok, bring him in.

So Sampuran Singh came and given the scene and story line wrote his FIRST EVER FILM SONG!

Bimald Roy's gamble paid off for what a hit  song it was!

And a living legend was born!!  his very first song from "Bandini" - _*"Mora gora rang laile, mohe shaam rang daidey"*_ sung by none other than Lata Mangeshkar.

Sardar Sampuran Singh Kalra later changed his name and became whom we know as  *"Gulzar"*LET ME GIVE THE BLOOMING GARDEN THE PRAISE IT DESERVES

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