Selected Poems

Gulzar, one of India's finest film-makers and lyricists, has always been a poet at heart. His oeuvre is steeped in a poetic sensibility, marked by a lyricism rare in the world of Hindi cinema. Born in 1934, Gulzar's journey as a poet began with the Progressive Writers' movement. Today, he is regarded as one of India's foremost Urdu poets, unparalleled in his exploration of human relationships and the insight and sensitivity with which he addresses the many facets of daily life.

Whether evoking an abiding nostalgia for yesterday ('The Heart Seeks'), lamenting the lack of time to spend with the beloved ('A Day to Spend'), or composing an elegy for a tree uprooted by a storm ('Amaltas'), Gulzar's poetry reflects his keen observation of life and the environment around him. Without in anyway compromising on artistry or lyricism, his poems incorporate the mundane and the everyday to create vivid images, like in 'Clothes', where the act of washing and drying clothes becomes a metaphor for a relationship gone wrong, or 'Monsoon' which draws an unforgettable parallel between the rainwater gushing through streets and young children returning home victorious in a match.

The sophistication and cadences of Gulzar's work come alive in this bilingual selection of some of his best poetry, sensitively translated by Pavan K. Varma