Gulzar

Hindi

Sampooran Singh Gulzar (born as on August 18, 1936), famously known as Gulzar, is an Indian poet, lyricist, film-maker, director, and playwright from India. He works primarily in Hindi and Urdu languages. He was born in Dina, Jhelum District, British India, located in the current-day West Punjab, Pakistan. As a lyricist, Gulzar is best known for his association with the music director Rahul Dev Burman, and has also worked with other leading Hindi movie music directors including Sachin Dev Burman, Salil Chowdhury, and Madan Mohan. Gulzar was born a sikh, but is clean-shaven. Before becoming an established writer, Gulzar worked as a car mechanic in a garage. Gulzar has worked exhaustively in the Indian film industry for over forty three years. Gulzaar saab, as he is affectionately known has written in Hindi, Punjabi, and dialects of Hindi like Marwari (Rajasthani) and Bhojpuri. He is best known in India as a lyricist for songs that form an integral part of Indian cinema. Gulzar began his career under two other artists - Bimal Roy and Hrishikesh Mukherjee. His book Ravi Paar has a narrative of Bimal Roy and the agony of creation. Gulzar had leftist leanings (from an Indian perspective) in his early days that can be seen from his early movies (as director) like Mere Apne (translated as 'My dear ones'). His film Aandhi is an oblique criticism of Indian polity, and was banned for a time because it was seen as a criticism of Indira Gandhi for the imposition of the emergency. He ...