As I have always maintained, I
regard Gulzaar as one of the finest artists that God ever blessed us with. In
addition to producing some timeless gems, he has also touched upon works of
previous maestros and somehow made them more beautiful. Let us delve in two
such examples:
Amir Khusro, is regarded as THE
pioneer poet of khadi boli. Every kid, at least in the northern part of
India, is familiar with his timeless riddle, “ek thaal moti se bhara…”. His
series of “kyon sakhi saajan, nahi ____” riddles are a fine example of
utilizing the internal syllabic rhythm of language to highlight the playfulness
of the two protagonists in these riddles. But that is for another post.
It turns out that Khusro was much
more than a Hindi (khadi boli) poet.
Behold an excerpt from one of his poems:
Zehal-e miskin makun taghaful,
duraye naina banaye batiyan;
ki taab-e hijran nadaram ay jaan,
na leho kaahe lagaye chhatiyan.
This is a masterpiece in its own
accord. Apart from the obvious beauty of rhyme, the true brilliance of this
poem is that it has been composed in two different languages. The first half of
each line is Persian, or Faarsi, while the second half has been composed
in Braj bhasha.
Taking the initial phrase out
this poem of Khusro’s, Gulzaar has created a different couplet, somehow
preserving the original idea of interweaving two languages as well as the
emotion of romantic anguish. Here it is:
zihaal-e-miskeen mukon ba-ranjish,
bahaal-e-hijra bechara dil hai
(A song from movie Ghulaami)
Now this is called inspiration.
It’s like a true artist paying homage to another true artist. Legend saluting
legend. Brilliant.
Let’s look at another such example. This ghazal composed by
Ghalib is in praise of romantic idleness..
jee dhoondhtaa hai phir wohee fursat,
ke raat din baithe rahein tasavvur-e-jaanaa kiye
huye
Gulzar borrowed the ghazal, re-punctuated and changed the
meaning a little and added some more lines beautifully illustrating his idea.
Dil dhoondta hai, phir wohi fursat ke raat din,
Baithe rahein tasavvur-e-jaanaa kiye huye…
Jaadon ki narm dhoop aur aangan mein let kar
Aankhon pe kheench kar tere daaman ke saaye ko
Aundhe pade rahe kabhi karwat liye hue…
Gulzar somehow made the verse
more romantic, by singing about the times of enjoying the elation arising out
of oblivion, being satisfied with the nothingness and cherishing every moment
of it, being aware of your surroundings but not bothering to notice anything in
particular…
(Disclaimer: I am no expert on ghazals or any form of poetry.
I can barely recollect a couple of them. I am just a common admirer. And this
is only admiration.)
