Gulzar and Poetry

"Don't you guys feel that our thoughts are our worst enemy? But, can we imagine our lives without thoughts and if we stop thinking then what will we write, paint or sing?..." I was just pondering over this issueafter speaking to Gulzar, my favorite lyricist, at a party.

While everyone was surrounding him to get an autograph I wasstanding alone in a corner sipping ginger chai. I had met Gulza rearlier and I never thought, he would remember me. But he did cometo me and we were again arguing on the topic we left abruptly in thelast meeting – "All feelings fall in the ambit of thought. Whether for good or bad, it sucks life and keeps us on move".

Though it was sounding true I felt that thoughts are dangerous at times; they can make and mar the person's life! They suck everyone's life but a few of them like Gulzar could react with the pen.However, I find Gulzar a more sensible writer who carefully spins emotions to human understanding. Not only his lyrics but his voice has so much of depth. It speaks his whole personality. I don't know why I am mad with this guy. Probably because he very well responds to his thoughts!! Right now I am reading his Hindi poems. They are just amazing!!!

-Lakshmi.
________________________

"Dafn kardo ki mujhe saans mile,
Nabs kuch der se thami si hai".
-Gulzar

(Bury me so that I can breathe,
the pulse seems to have stopped since a while)

Dear Lux,

I envy you that you not only personally know Gulzaar Saab, but alsofor the fact that you carry out conversations with him. Lucky Lux!!!Gulzaar is in a sense the most accomplished of the modern Indian poets. His magic stretches across genres and so he is a name heard and recognised long and wide in India. Starting from film music my tryst with Gulzaar was bonded by Ghazals. I am too small a person tosay much about a towering personality that he is. A fan is always a fanatic and hence is biased while talking about his/her idol.

However I would like to add a few lines to what Lux has said. Poetry, music, painting in short art, as we see it/them is a refined product of a crude seed called the thought. And this seed in turn is theresult of a 'superior' sense called the 'feeling'. So, what starts instantaneously, without any colour, is the feeling. And what gets across as art is the total collection of such feeling/s which over aperiod of time is crafted, sculpted and given hue. This is where William Wordsworth and T.S.Elliott differ. For WW poetry per se was the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings recollected in tranquility. While TSE put poetry as a craft and compared a poet to the sculptor. A feeling is neither strong nor weak - it is value neutral and colourless. It gains all the adjectives that we people tend to heap on it only when the 'feeling' is converted into a 'thought'. Inshort 'feeling' is 'abstract' while a 'thought' is 'definite'!

Thanks Lux for inspiring me to write something close to the heart after a long long time.

-Bhadri.

(An exchange over a yahoo group during June-July 2005)