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Lets discover Ghalib'
December 26, 2010 11:34:35 PM
Lyricist-director Gulzar feels its high time youngsters should wake up to preserve the legacy of one of Indias greatest poets. DIVYA KAUSHIK reports
It is not everyday that you find a workaholic like Gulzar choosing to take a weekend off. But if it is the birth anniversary of one of the greatest Indian poets ever, Mirza Ghalib, then the Grammy award-winning lyricist, poet and director needs to be there. Always known to be a man of few words, we found Gulzar enjoying the morning winter sun in the green lawns at Indian Womens Press Corp (IWPC). And once you start talking to him, you find he has loads of things to share.
A few lines of ghazals by the famous poet automatically come to him every time he starts to tell us something. Over the last few years, I make it a point to be here on December 26 and participate in a candle-lit march led by bureaucrat Pavan K Varma and danseuse Uma Sharma from Chandni Chowk to Gali Qasim Jaan where Ghalibs Haveli is located. The march has been organised to create awareness and restore the legacy of the poet, whose birth anniversary falls tomorrow, we have in the form of his haveli. If people like danseuse Uma Sharma would not have taken note, it would have remained in a dilapidated state forever, he says thoughtfully.
This anniversary, says the famous director, is all the more special as it was on his request sculptor Bhagwan Rampure prepared the poets bust which will be installed at Ghalibs Haveli coming Monday. People, some of them who live near the haveli, dont have any information on who Ghalib was. A handful who happen to know about him have no clear picture about him. I was in Russia recently and noticed the sculpture of Tolstoy and that is when I decided that Ghalibs Haveli should also have his mark. One of the other reasons why I was keen on getting his sculpture done was because no one has a clear picture of how Ghalib looked. There is only one original portrait prepared by Zakir Husain and one of his photographs that was clicked long back. Perhaps the time when the camera was introduced in India and at that time, it was sold for `2, he says with a smile.
There is so much about the great poet one should know but then a single day would not suffice, he adds. Perhaps this was the reason why the lyricist felt he should come up with a television serial and a book on Ghalib. People, especially youngsters should know what an interesting personality he was to get encouraged and inspired to preserve his heritage. Ghalib had an amazing sense of humour too and was above class and religious divides. I remember reading that once someone got him mithai on Diwali and his neighbour commented Aaj aap ek Hindu ke yahaan ki barfi khayenge? He replied, Mujhe nahin pata tha ki barfi Hindu hai, bataiye ki iss hisaab se jalebi kya hui? Isnt it surprising that Ghalib could maintain his sense of humour even after losing seven children in his life. He never openly discussed the pain in his heart. Only if one follows his works closely, one could guess he was an egotist who knew what he achieved in this world. One has to read a lot to discover about his personality, he says.
For the last few years, Gulzar has tried to keep himself away from movies. He reasons that the movie is completely a commercial venture today that requires at least two years to reach the cinema hall. There are so many people who are doing movies now, but I feel there are many other important things that need my attention. After Ghalib, Ill be working on Rabindranath Tagore. In fact, I want to do Tagore for children. Like Ghalib, people havent read about Tagore beyond Geetanjali. Im doing narrations from his books across the country to let people know more about Tagore, he says and adds that besides this, he is also working on some plays.
The only way Gulzar feels awareness can be created is through a movement and involving more and more people. We dont have a problem with Shakespeare been taught in schools but our point is that literary experts like Tagore and other poets should also form a part of syllabus in schools, he sums up.
