Gulzar's Lyrics Now In English  Gulzar |
100 of the best works of Gulzar have been translated into English by scriptwriter Sunjoy Shekhar which will be a part of the anthology, ‘100 Lyrics’. Gulzar revealed that rocker Sting had been the inspiration behind the compilation.
‘100 Lyrics’ is a bi-lingual volume which comes with the original Hindi lyrics and the English translations, featuring anecdotes about the composition.
This anthology from Penguin-Books India contains the English translations for songs right from the ‘Mera Gora Ang Lai Le’ from Bimay Roy’s ‘Bandini’ to ‘Dil Dhoondta Hai’, ‘Naam gum jayega’, ‘Humne dekhi hai un aankhon ki’, ‘Is mod pe jate hain’ and ‘Mera kucch Saman’, to name a few.
Gulzar, who had been the Oscar winner this year for ‘Jai Ho’ in the film ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, found a sound inspiration from musician Sting.
"The popular musician Sting inspired me to compile this book. I have published several volumes of my poetry before and compiled my stories separately in two small volumes in Hindi. Somehow, I do not mix the two, except when my poems were picked up for a film and dressed with a musical rendering," said Gulzar.
"Following in the footsteps of Sting, I undressed my lyrics - and realised that lyrics can survive on their own without a mannequin or a visual. If not all, a good majority of them survived in another genre or form- as poetry," says Gulzar.
"When Sunjoy translated a few of my lyrics to English, they sounded suspiciously like poems. In a poem and a lyric, the major difference is that a poem is a personal expression of the poet, whereas in a lyric, the expression is primarily that of a character arising out of the situation of a film story," Gulzar said.
The song ‘Musafir hoon yaron’ or ‘I am, but a wanderer, my friends’ from ‘Parichay’ is the first song which he rendered for Pancham or R.D Burman.
"On his way to the Raj Kamal Studios, where he was supposed to record music for 'Parichay', he picked me up from home. He had explained the situation to me. En route, Pancham told me he had not thought about the score. 'Give me a couple of lines and I can work on them, Pancham said'," Gulzar recalled.
The lyricist thought of a few stray lines and after reaching the studio, he made Pancham write a couplet, "Musafir hoon yaron... mujhe chale jaana hai, bas chalte jaana."
"Pancham dismissed me saying my work was over. At midnight, he knocked on my door and hauled me out of my bed into his car waiting below my apartment. He switched on the cassette and there was this incredible melody. As he raced his car down the empty streets of Mumbai, he hummed the tune and I supplied the words. That's how we carried it forward," Gulzar said, narrating how the popular song took shape.
Gulzar's lyrics surpass the social barriers, says translator Sunjoy Shekhar.
"Be it a rickshaw-puller or a Sufi saint, Gulzar touches them both. The lyrics are not about words or rhythms, but about interpreting the world," said Shekhar.
