Gushing with Gulzar

Is reading dying? Gulzar's Kitabein Jhankti Hain... may indicate his apprehensions, writes Benita Sen.

There's a gamble event organisers take with pre-written press releases that are written in the past tense reporting for an event yet to take place. More often than not, the gamble pays off. But sometimes, just sometimes, it doesn't.

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As when a major reading-book-literature-film event took place in Kolkata on November 28 at Crossword, when Gulzar saab was to be, if you reported the press handout, caught in a "rare treat with stalwart Rituparno Ghosh's exclusive rendezvous."

But then, once the morning got going, a one-on-several with Gulzar saab was nothing short of exhilarating for those who have read his works in translations. And if you've read him in the "original" (that's an important word when it comes to his writing and more of that later), it sent you into raptures.

Gulzar has charmed his way into the hearts of, till now, three generations of literature and film buffs through various media. Poetry, lyrics, films. And the spoken word, as he proved today.

Little wonder that the man Satyajit Ray had called upon to translate the lyrics of his children's classic, Goopi Gyne Bagha Byne into Hindi for a version that was never to be, was back in Kolkata to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award from Bengal Film Journalists' Association, the oldest such entity in the country, dating to the mid-1930s and certainly one whose awards are hugely respected.