I have faith in today's generation: Gulzar

Nilanjana Sengupta / TNN / Jan 16, 2007, 00:40 IST

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TOI brings Gulzar to his one-time muse, Mumbai's Town Hall, for filming phase two of the India Poised campaign.

I have faith in today's generation: Gulzar

In the 1950s, Gulzar had penned a poem on Mumbai's imposing Town Hall about a poet who used to sleep on the seventh step and sell magazines during the day.
Those days, the well-known lyricist worked out of an office on the road opposite the Town Hall and feasted on kheema-pav for 25 paise at an Irani restaurant round the corner. Decades after Gulzar moved address and the restaurant folded up, TOI brings poet and muse together one more time.
At 11 am, the elegant grandeur of the Town Hall bathed in the winter sun makes for an eye-catching visual.The white Greco-Roman columns overlooking the historic 30 steps create an aura that even the snarling traffic on the road ahead cannot destroy.
One end of the Town Hall's portico has been taken up by a slew of young men and women. Like the book lovers and students who trek up the stairs and and disappear into the Asiatic Society library inside, these people too are single-mindedly devoted to their task.

With cameras, trolley and lights, they are readying the stage for the second India Poised film after Amitabh Bachchan set the tone for the campaign in the first phase.
The flurry of activity comes to a halt. Gulzarsaab emerges from the shadows in his trademark crisp white cotton kurta-pyjama. We watch him slowly ascend the stairs in his grave quiet manner, head bowed as if ruminating.
The director claps his hands. The spell is broken but only for the moment. Gulzarsaab's brown shawl is exchanged for a green one and the camera begins to roll. As he starts to speak, his baritone rising and falling, all eyes are on him.

"Hindustan ummeed se hai.... Chalo chale, jo tum chalo, toh Hindustan bhi chale. (India is on to big things.... (If you walk, the nation will walk with you)."
Though the production team has prepared cue boards containing the lines in large fonts, Gulzar recites the poem he has written for India Poised from memory.
After the first take, he turns around, smiles and says: "I feel nervous." This is the first time that the multi-faceted artist is participating in a venture like India Poised. "I truly believe in the cause and its purpose.
There is a very strong message here," the poet, whose earlier brush with a social service campaign has been to speak a line on the importance of polio drops for children, says.
When we approached Gulzar to be our messenger in the second phase of TOI's India Poised campaign, directed by Shoojit Sarkar, he did not think twice.
Inspired by Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore's "Jodi tor daak shune keo na ashe tobe ekla cholo re (Walk alone if no one responds to your call)", Gulzar took a couple of days to pen the poem for TOI.
The man, who has been adapting and adding the language of the youth into samples of his work, feels safer in handing over the reins of the country to the young.
Even now, he is ready to improvise and suggest English words (like "rainbow" that finally did not find favour). "Today's generation may or may not understand the Hindi equivalent, satrangi, so I can explain it in the previous line," he says.
"I have faith in today's generation," adds the forward-thinking poet. "It is more straightforward, honest and to the point. It will take India onto bigger things in a far better way than my generation could."

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