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The manner in which Gulzar observes the happenings before documenting them in prose or lyrics or verse is quite elegant, writes HUMRA QURAISHI<\/em><\/p>\n Come August and its Gulzar saab\u2019s birthday. Born on 18 August 1934 in the Undivided Punjab, he\u2019s going strong. That grace, that attractive-poetic-romantic look to him hasn\u2019t ebbed. He looks a shayar and also converses like a shayar with that gentle strain to his voice.<\/p>\n There\u2019s something or everything so very different about Gulzar saab, that\u2019s difficult to describe or even pinpoint. It\u2019s not just the way he dresses so very elegantly in the white cotton kurta-pyjama, but the manner in which he observes the happenings before documenting them in prose or lyrics or verse.<\/p>\n Correct if I\u2019m wrong but Gulzar saab\u2019s prose and verse focusing on the Partition are hitting to such an extent that till date that pain and turbulence seems hovering around. He witnessed the Partition and experienced those upheavals, and the impact and imprints they\u2019d left on him gets writ large in his writings; that pain manages to seep in each one of those words.<\/p>\n In fact, just before sitting down to write this column I re-read one of Gulzar saab\u2019s earlier published volumes -\u2018Footprints on Zero Line-Writings On The Partition\u2019 (Harper Collins) which he has dedicated to, \u2018To Dina, my birthplace in Pakistan\u2019. He dwells on Dina, and also on the masses going through turbulence\u2026 To quote Gulzar saab, \u201cI have witnessed the Partition. I have experienced the Partition. Standing on Zero Line I am still watching the trail of Partition. Seventy years have passed. Time has not been able to blow off the footprints. I don\u2019t know how long it will take for them to sink into history and be the past.\u201d<\/p>\n Tucked in this volume Gulzar saab\u2019s this absolutely hitting touching verse:<\/p>\n Walking up to Wagah with measured steps<\/p>\n When I came to stand at the Zero line<\/p>\n My shadow fell in Pakistan!<\/p>\n The sun was behind me<\/p>\n And my abbu was standing in front<\/p>\n He saw me<\/p>\n Resting his stick on the ground<\/p>\n He smiled and said,<\/p>\n \u2018When I had left my body there<\/p>\n I came back home, Punni!\u2019<\/p>\n Abbu used to call me \u2018Punni.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018I had hoped you would come,<\/p>\n For you had not received the news of my death<\/p>\n I knew you would come to bid me farewell!\u2019<\/p>\n Startled, the moment paused<\/p>\n He tapped the ground with his stick<\/p>\n Stretching his hand, he said:<\/p>\n \u2018Come, let us go to Dina!\u2019<\/p>\n My friends who had come to receive me at Wagah<\/p>\n Held me by the hand and took me to Lahore<\/p>\n In the din of the city no voices came back to me<\/p>\n But I could see a trail of silence<\/p>\n That led to Dina \u2026<\/p>\n The latest from Gulzar Saab<\/p>\n And now comes the latest from Gulzar saab. In fact, during this entire lock down stretch he has been busy writing prose and also verse. In fact, the latest issue of the Indian Literature carries three poems of Gulzar saab \u2014 \u2018Migrants, COVID -19\u2019, \u2018A Death in Covid -19\u2019, \u2018A Day In Lockdown\u2019 and also one of his short stories, \u2018Online\u2019, on the Coronavirus times we are trying to survive in.<\/p>\n I spoke to Gulzar saab earlier this month to take his permission to quote his verse in my column and he agreed and then gently added that I must make sure to mention the name of the translator of his works, Rakhshanda Jalil . She is one of our finest translators and has translated his recent writings, from Urdu to English.<\/p>\n Though I\u2019m tempted to quote a paragraph from his short story, more so as he uses real names of the well-known character from real life, but space constraints come in way.<\/p>\n Leaving you with Gulzar saab\u2019s verse.<\/p>\n His this verse titled<\/p>\n \u2018Migrants, COVID-19\u2019:<\/p>\n The pandemic raged<\/p>\n The workers and labourers fled to their homes<\/p>\n All the machines ground to a halt in the cities<\/p>\n Their hands and feet moved with the machines<\/p>\n For, they had planted their lives back in the villages<\/p>\n The acre or two of land, or perhaps five acres<\/p>\n The sowing and harvesting were all back there<\/p>\n Jowar, wheat, corn, bajra \u2014 all of it<\/p>\n Those divisions with the cousins and brothers<\/p>\n Those fights at the canals and waterways<\/p>\n The strongmen, sometimes from their side and sometimes from this<\/p>\n The lawsuits dating back to grandparents and grand uncles<\/p>\n Engagements, marriages, fields<\/p>\n Famine, flood, fear: will the skies rain or not?<\/p>\n They will go to die there – where there is life<\/p>\n Here, they have only brought their bodies and plugged them in!<\/p>\n \n They pulled out the plugs<\/p>\n \u2018Come let\u2019s go home\u2019 \u2014 and they set off<\/p>\n They will go to die there \u2014 where there is life!<\/p>\n \n Also, his this verse titled:<\/p>\n A Death in Covid- 19<\/p>\n Coronavirus had caught hold of him<\/p>\n He was in the General Ward<\/p>\n The window was in the wall near him<\/p>\n Like in the Allan Seager story<\/p>\n From where he could watch his village all day long<\/p>\n The road going towards his village<\/p>\n The bus racing own the road in the evening\u2019s glow<\/p>\n Trailing a cloud of red dust<\/p>\n Like a Spiderman<\/p>\n His house was in the village Beechak, zila Palamon<\/p>\n Only two capsules<\/p>\n A bottle of water<\/p>\n Half-sucked lime \u2014<\/p>\n This was all the wealth he left behind and moved on!<\/p>\n \n tehelkaletters@gmail.com<\/p>\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The manner in which Gulzar observes the happenings before documenting them in prose or lyrics or verse is quite elegant, writes HUMRA QURAISHI Come August and its Gulzar saab\u2019s birthday. Born on 18 August 1934 in the Undivided Punjab, he\u2019s going strong. That grace, that attractive-poetic-romantic look to him hasn\u2019t ebbed. He looks a shayar […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":333881,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23,36,1801,2205],"tags":[22],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333880"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333880"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333880\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":333882,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333880\/revisions\/333882"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/333881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}