Golden Era of Bollywood: The Songs of Gulzar

Saturday 18 August 2018

The Songs of Gulzar

Gulzar, originally Sampoorna Singh Kalra started to work as a garage mechanic in Worli while writing poetry in his spare time. Gulzar, as any other dreamer who comes to Bombay for the first time, was bitten by the film bug. It is said that Gulzar's first song was Mora Gora Rang Le Le from 1963 film Bandini. that's not a true the first song written by him was from Kabuliwala 1961, "Ganga Aye Kahan Se" the Hindi translation of a Bengali song.sung by Hemant Kumar. After that Bimal Roy asked him to write songs for Prem Patra 1962 film.
He then began writing for films for directors like Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Asit Sen. Some of the films that Gulzar has written include Anand (1970), Guddi (1971), Bawarchi (1972) and Namak Haram (1973) for Hrishida and Do Dooni Char (1968), Khamoshi (1969) and Safar (1970) for Asit Sen.
With Mere Apne in 1971, he donned the role of a filmmaker. Gulzar went on to make Parichay (1972) and Koshish (1972). With Sanjeev Kumar, he made Aandhi (1975), Mausam (1975), Angoor (1981) and Namkeen (1982) He also made film with Jeetendra (Parichay, Khushboo (1975), Kinara (1977), with Vinod Khanna: Achanak (1973), Meera (1979) and Lekin (1990) and Hema Malini: Khushboo (1975), Kinara (1977), Meera (1979)
As a lyricist, Gulzar had a close association with the music director Rahul Dev Burman. Both of them gave some gems of the songs. Later he is associated with Vishal Bhardwaj in Maachis (1996), Omkara (2006) and Kaminey (2009); A. R. Rahman in Dil Se.. (1998), Guru (2007), Slumdog Millionaire (2008) and Raavan (2010)
Rahman and Gulzar won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Jai Ho" at the 81st Academy Awards. The song received international acclaim and won him a Grammy Award (shared with Rahman) in the category of Grammy Award for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media. Gulzar has written lyrics and dialogues for several Doordarshan TV series including Jungle Book, Alice in Wonderland, Hello Zindagi, Guchche and Potli Baba Ki with Vishal Bhardwaj.
Gulzar is married to actress Raakhee. The couple has a daughter, Meghna Gulzar (Bosky). Meghna Gulzar grew up with her mother and father and, after completing her graduation in filmmaking from New York University, went on to become a director of films such as Filhaal, Just Married, Dus Kahaniyaan and Raazi
He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2004 and the Sahitya Akademi Award in 2002. He has won a number of National Film Awards and 20 Filmfare Awards. He was also given Baba Saheb Phalke Award.