The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : A message from the heart

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Nov 10, 2005

Kerala

Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

A message from the heart

Staff Reporter

AMONG BOOKS: Poet Gulzar at the National Book Exhibition in Thiruvananthapuram. - Photo: C.R.K

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: "I don't have much in my head but I have a lot in my heart. It is from there that I communicate... ."

Indeed, it was a meeting of hearts at the children's pavilion of the ongoing National Book Fair organised by the National Book Trust at the Putharrikkandom grounds in the city. For more than an hour dozens of school children listened in rapt attention to poet Gulzar as he `spoke from his heart' on a range of issues.

One child wanted him to explain the origins of the Urdu language. Gulzar explained that Urdu is very much an Indian language though it was initially written using the Persian script. "Brij Bhasha, Bhojpuri, Hariyanvi, Punjabi, Gujarati... Urdu contains elements of all these languages. It has also borrowed letters from Sanskrit. However, Urdu does not belong to any religion, caste or region," the poet told the child.

Then pat came the next question: "How has Kabir influenced you?" The question seemed to delight Gulzar so much that he broke out into applause before beginning to answer. "Kabir and Nanak used Urdu in its earliest form. Kabir's greatest quality was his ability to pick out idioms, expressions and proverbs from the daily life of the common man and use it in his poetry. I admire Kabir's imagery very much and I admire you very much for asking this question," he told the delighted questioner.

The discussion then veered round to Gulzar's films. One girl wanted to know why he chose to make films that `tread the middle path' in Hindi cinema. Why didn't he go into commercial, mainstream cinema? The reply was as succinct as it was poetic. "Mainly because I was trained in middle-ground style of cinema by my gurus like Bimal Roy. Then again, I am not an intellectual. I don't have much in my head but a lot in my heart. It is from there that I communicate. That communication is much greater than logic," said the poet, "so I did not make the kind of movies that intellectuals watch. I did not also want to make the escapist kind of cinema that takes one away from life itself. So I chose the middle way."

But then the child in Gulzar could not remain still for long. Asked about his favourite activity at school he quipped: " my favourite activity in school was running away from the class room. I used to love books but I was terrified of Mathematics as much as you are terrified of a terrorist. I hated mugging up as it used to make me feel like a caged parrot. But then don't copy me. In those days school was not so attractive a phenomenon. There were no uniforms, teachers used to cane us... I wish I could wear a tie, get into a uniform and come to school with you people."

He also had a message from the heart for the children present. When a child asked him to sing the song `Saare Jahan se Acha... ' Gulzar asked the children whether it was really true that Hindustan was really `saare jahan se acha.' "The generation before mine handed to us a good India. We did not do a good job of that. Now I pass on the motivation to you so that you can give the generation after you an India that is really the best place in the world," he concluded.

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