Gulzar was born in Dina (District Jhelum, now in Pakistan) in 1934. After partition, the family split and moved to Delhi and Mumbai. Partition and the horrors of partition significantly influenced young Gulzar, and later in his life, he published short stories and a novel about this apocalyptic event. As a student, he was impressed by the poetry of Tagore and Ghalib. After a short stay in Delhi, he moved to Mumbai and worked in a motor garage owned by the family, working on paints and colors. He had a great desire to be a writer, an ideal for which there was not much support from his uprooted family. He started attending meetings of the Progressive Writers Association and got to know film lyricist and poet Shailendra, who introduced him to leading directors Bimal Roy and Hrishikesh Mukherji. He wrote his first film song for Bandini in 1963, inspired by a Braj Bhasha folk line, and within a few years, he established himself as a famous songwriter. In the seventies, Gulzar took the role of a film director, and he directed many award-winning films. He is most remembered for his TV serial Mirza Ghalib in Eightees, which helped generate significant interest in the life and work of the poet. Gulzar has won more awards and national and international honors than any other Urdu or Hindi poet, including Padma Bhushan, Sahitya Akademi, Dadasaheb Phalke, National Film, Filmfare, Oscar, and a Grammy. Gulzar is the author of nearly two dozen Urdu, Hindi, and Punjabi books, and he has been translated into English and several other Indian languages.
For more about Urdu Ghazal Poetry, please refer to:
Gopi Chand Narang, Translation by Surinder Deol. The Urdu Ghazal: A Gift of Composite Culture. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2020.
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