Gulzar turns 90 – Here is a glance at the acclaimed lyricist of India

Milind Dharmasena

Sampooran Singh Kalra, who later took pen name as Gulzar to become the most loved and admired eminent poet of India, turns 90 years old today .His achievement as a poet , film writer, film maker is unmatched till date .

Gulzar is known for his unique ability of writing poetry .He introduced the ‘ Triveni ‘ form of poetry writing, which consists of three hemistichs known as misra, where the final misra in third line gives a new dimension to the already meaningful first two lines.Gulzar blends urdu with native hindi with such a finesse that a reader feels a new expression of emotions in his each words.

It all started for Gulzar, when he was assisting Bimal Roy in the movie ‘Bandini’ ,in the direction department. When Bimal Roy and lyricist Shailendra insisted him to write a song for the movie , Gulzar reluctantly agreed and penned the song ‘ Mora Gora rang lay le’ which became a super hit. Gulzar later never looked back from here and went on to become the most acclaimed lyricist, screenwriter and director of Hindi movies.

The memorable songs which gulzar wrote for Aandhi, Mausam , Mere Apne , Ghar , Khusboo, Parichay and the recent years Dil se to Slumdog millionaire have won national and state awards .The song ‘Jai ho ‘ penned by him has won the most prestigious Oscar awards .

Gulzar met his match of poetry in actress Rakhee to whom he has dedicated numerous poetry and made her his life partner .Meghna , their daughter has followed foot steps of her father in film making and gave hits like ‘ Filhal’ , ‘Talvar ‘ , ‘ Raazi ‘ and ‘Sam Bahadur’ .

Gulzar was fond of many of his co-workers with whom he partnered in multiple films .His favorite actor Sanjeev kumar teamed up with him in Aandhi, Mausam ,Namkeen , Angoor , Koshish and few more .Gulzaar loved to work with Vinod Khanna and casted him in movies like Mere Apne , Achanak , Parichay .Among the new found admiration of his are actress Tabu with whom he directed movies like Maachis , Hu Tu Tu and music director Vishal Bharadwaj whom he gave a break from the movie Maachis followed by all his movies till date.

Gulzar was also a revolutionary within .He reflected this side of him in directorial ventures like Aandhi, Mere Apne, which had social rebellion themes weaved by human emotions. He has written many revolutionary poetry too apart from just being a romantic poet .