Humra Quraishi*
I’m filing this column on February 21st. It’s early afternoon, and as of now, the farmers seem to be going ahead with their ‘Delhi Chalo’ march towards the capital city, New Delhi. News reports are also coming in of the Central government trying to hold another round of talks with them – that is, the fifth round of talks. Not sure what happens next, as tension continues, not just in and around the Delhi borders, but spreading out.
As I’d written in last week’s column, this time the farmer wants a concrete conclusion, where all the long-pending demands are met with and nothing left in suspense. Braving the harsh ground realities-cum-weather conditions, there’s no going back for the farmer. After all, he realizes it’s now or never! And this time he’s in no mood to be taken in by hollow assurances of the establishment or let the political tactics ruin and dent the very unity of the farmers.
GULZAR SAAB – The POET with a personality
The 58th Jnanpith Award for the year 2023 has been awarded to Swami Rambhadracharya for Sanskrit and Gulzar saab for Urdu. He has earlier received the Sahitya Akademi Award for Urdu in 2002, the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 2013, the Padma Bhushan in 2004, and at least five National Film awards for his works.
Gulzar saab is one of those Bollywood personalities, who till date writes, reads, and converses in Urdu. With that in the background, I’d on an earlier occasion asked him: In the times we are living in, is it tough to be Urdu speaking? Did you ever suffer from a complex on account of this?
He responded, “No, never. I have always been very comfortable with Urdu. In fact, the only time I’ve suffered from a complex was from the fact I couldn’t complete my graduation. For a long time, this bothered me as in those days a degree meant a lot, but I couldn’t complete my graduation because of financial conditions-cum-constraints. And, perhaps, to make up on that front, I took to reading and writing. Reading has been my passion right from childhood.”
He detailed that Rabindranath Tagore’s books have always been of great significance in his life.
He elaborated, “After the Partition, our family shifted to old Delhi’s Subzi Mandi locality. Somehow, very early on, I took to reading and became a voracious reader, borrowing books from a local shop. One day, I got hold of Tagore’s ‘Gardener’. Reading that changed the entire course of my life and thinking — it could be called the turning point of my life.”
He’d also detailed that the Kashmir Valley always fascinated him.
“Gulzar had planned to make a film on Kashmir based on Krishna Chander’s ‘Kitaab Ka Kafan’ and it dealt with two lovers in the two parts of Kashmir and how they try to overcome the military barriers. But the film could not be made.”
He revealed, “Raakhee and I decided to go to Srinagar for our honeymoon… Raakhee and I often teased our daughter Bosky that she was conceived there in the Valley… In Srinagar, we’d stayed at the Oberoi hotel. Its garden had two majestic Chinars, I called them Badshah and Begum, or Jehangir and Noorjehan,… Years later I saw them again, and they looked so forlorn… Kashmir is an integral part of my emotions; it’s a region that is close to the region of my heart. I had earlier even planned to make a film on the Valley. I’d even named the film – it was to be titled ‘Is Vaadi Mein’ and it was based on Krishna Chander’s short story collection ‘Kitaab Ka Kafan’ and it dealt with two lovers in the two parts of the Valley and how they try to overcome the military barriers. Sadly, the film could not be made as the Kargil War had broken out.”
Over a decade back when his short story collection – ‘Half a Rupee Stories’ (Penguin) was released in New Delhi, I couldn’t attend its launch as one of my cousins had met with a fatal road accident in Uttar Pradesh so I had to rush there.
On getting back it was touching to see that Gulzar saab had dedicated one of the short stories in that volume to me, with this accompanying one-liner: “We shared a lot of Kashmir though neither of us is from there.”
And in his second collection of short stories cum essays titled ‘Footprints on Zero Line-Writings On The Partition’ (Harper Collins), he once again dedicated that story to me.
For the last several years, Gulzar saab has been focusing on writing. One book after another.
“Writing is now center stage… There are several books in my head, and I want to complete them… writing is very important. It is a shock absorber. It has the capacity to absorb all upheavals, shocks, pains, all the conditions you’re going through. It is like driving along a road which could be uneven or bumpy, and writing becomes your vehicle. It takes you along, as though you are riding a tiger! I have been witnessing some stark realities since my childhood. When the Partition took place, I was very young but I could see and sense the pain around me, how thousands of people went through that upheaval. I have been witnessing realities and I have been writing on them,” he said.
He’d told me he loves writing for children, “I love writing for children, find it very fulfilling.”
He added yet another rather significant input, which parents ought to take note of, “Today we are snatching away childhood of our children, by putting our children too early into formal education, we are shrinking that crucial phase of life. My worry is that in the coming years, children could get extremely lonely, especially in urban locations.”
The more I read Gulzar saab, I am left amazed by the expanse and the sheer sensitivity of his verse and prose. There’s that stark simplicity and with that, that instant connect. His fans are thousands and spread out, right from our land to those spread-out continents. After all, poets don’t believe in boundaries or barriers, nor Lines of Control.
Gulzar saab’s prose and verse focusing on the Partition are hard-hitting, to such an extent that till date that pain and turbulence seem hovering around. He witnessed the Partition and experienced those upheavals, and the impact and imprints they’d left on him get writ large in his writings; that pain manages to seep into each one of those words.
Just before sitting down to write this column, I re-read one of Gulzar saab’s earlier published volumes – ‘Footprints on Zero Line-Writings On The Partition’ (Harper Collins) which he has dedicated to, ‘To Dina, my birthplace in Pakistan’.
He dwells on Dina, and also on the masses going through turbulence… To quote Gulzar saab, “I have witnessed the Partition. I have experienced the Partition. Standing on Zero Line, I am still watching the trail of Partition. Seventy years have passed. Time has not been able to blow off the footprints. I don’t know how long it will take for them to sink into history and be the past.”
Tucked in this volume, is this absolutely hitting touching verse:
“Walking up to Wagah with measured steps
When I came to stand at the Zero line
My shadow fell in Pakistan!
The sun was behind me
And my abbu was standing in front
He saw me
Resting his stick on the ground
He smiled and said,
‘When I had left my body there
I came back home, Punni!’
Abbu used to call me ‘Punni.’
‘I had hoped you would come,
For you had not received the news of my death
I knew you would come to bid me farewell!’
Startled, the moment paused
He tapped the ground with his stick
Stretching his hand, he said:
‘Come, let us go to Dina!’
My friends who had come to receive me at Wagah
Held me by the hand and took me to Lahore
In the din of the city no voices came back to me
But I could see a trail of silence
That led to Dina …”
*****
Ending this week’s column with these lines of Gulzar saab, which seem apt in these times we are living in, nay somehow surviving in:
“Kuchh bhi qayam nahin hai kuchh bhi nahin/
Raat-din gir rahe hain chausar par/
Aundhi–seedhi-si kaudiyon ki tarah /
Mah-o saal haath lagte hain/
Ungliyon se phisalte rahte hain/
Kuchh bhi qayam nahin hai kuchh bhi nahin/
Aur jo qayam hai ek bus main hoon/
Main jo har pal badalta rahta hoon.”
(Nothing is permanent, nothing at all/
Days and nights fall on the chausar board/
Like kauri shells, some face up others down/
The months and years dealt out to you/
Slip through fingers/
Nothing is permanent, nothing at all/
And what is permanent is me/
I, who is changing at every instant.)
—–
Have you liked the news article?