It’s a creative overload when Bollywood’s quintessential guru-shishya, filmmaker-poets Gulzar and Vishal Bhardwaj come together. Here, they not only muse on their times together, but also the three ‘c’s — cinema, censorship and children’s films
Rachana Dubey (BOMBAY TIMES; January 8, 2018)

This guru-shishya’s exchanges are what literary and artistic dreams are probably made of. The seamless blending of their crafts, as a pensmith and a composer-storyteller,over the years often makes it difficult to analyse their works independent of the other. So, it was a momentous day for admirers when they came together at an literary event recently — Gulzar for his first book as a novelist,and his protégé, Vishal Bhardwaj for his first book as a poet. Off the stage, Bombay Times sat them down for a conversation to understand their views of marrying creative liberties and art in modern times, their mutual love for poetry and children’s literature and what really makes their association so special.

Gulzar saab, your protégé has followed into your footsteps as a poet now, and added another feather to his cap...
Yes, Vishal is a poet and a certified one with his first book. A lot of people ask me if he is inspired by me. I just tell them one thing, yeh mera naam le leta hai, bahut si ladkiyan iske chaaron aur phirti hain, batata nahi hai mujhe (Vishal laughs loudly). He tells them that he’s inspired by me. You know the traits of these poets…Yeh badmaashi bhi ek trait hai.

Vishal, do you agree with him?
I can never disagree with him about anything. The truth is that he genuinely inspires me. If I had to put it in numbers, it would be more than 100 per cent. Everything about Gulzar saab inspires me.I know all his poetries by heart. If you quote even a word from any of them,trust me, I can recite the entire poem for you. It’s his films, his songs and his poetry that have made me who I am.

Did you also use his poetry to woo your wife Rekha (who blushes at the mention)?
Vishal: The first film Rekha ji and I saw together was a film, Ijaazat (1987), made by Gulzar saab. Now, that is romance of another kind. Our kind.
Gulzar: Inka record kuch theek nahi hai (laughs). I am not responsible isko bargalane ke liye.

Is there any one of your collaborations, across the years, that you could pin down as the best that you’ve done together?
Gulzar: You can never like any one thing, because everything has a reference and was meant to be a certain way in that time zone. We like everything we have done, and we own everything we have worked together for. It’s not right to place a finger on one piece of work and say, ‘this is the best we have done so far’. We belong to all the work we have done and vice versa. There is not one piece of work that happened by chance, there was conscious effort on both our parts.

Vishal, what have been your takeaways from the exchanges you’ve had with a mentor like Gulzar saab?
Vishal: I became a director because of him. He inspired me to become a director and in turn, to be a writer and a visualiser.
Gulzar: Once during our early years as collaborators, Vishal had said, ‘Yeh peti leke main nahi ghoom sakta.’ I had told him then, ‘Yeh cinema ek hi shaqs ki zubaan samajhta hai, woh hai director.’’ For years, he has persistently written and directed his films. His imagination is very strong. And I have enjoyed every step of our journey. In fact, he has learnt to write in meter, which I can’t. It’s my turn to learn that from him. For me, his poems are like my child’s hand and finger impressions. Whenever I’d ask for one of his earlier poems, he would go looking for them all over. He has written so many poems over the years that it became important to put these pearls together in a chain and not let them get lost in the sands of time.

Vishal, what is the kind of feedback you get for your work from Gulzar saab?
He is very honest. If he likes something, he says it, and if he doesn’t, he still says it; in simple words — koi parda nahi hai.

Does Gulzar saab have inputs to offer on your films?
When I’m working on the film’s edit, there’s one session that I have with him. He edits my films, pins down things in each one of them and tells me what I could do away with. While he tells me what he thinks,he consciously ensures that he doesn’t force me to accept what he says.

Filmmakers and their creative liberties have come under the scanner in recent times. It is unlike the time when Gulzar saab underlined social and political matters through several of his films like Mere Apne (1971) and Aandhi (1975). Do you think creative thinking is being confined today?
Vishal: Situations and times change and as filmmakers, artistes and creative thinkers, you have to adapt to the given circumstances. You can always say what you have to, but you can change the style of saying things. I say what I want to in my films, but in a manner that is suited for the times. In fact, I believe that this is a good time for creative and artistic thinkers as creativity always flourishes in such times. Jab aapko kone mein dabaaya jaata hai, tabhi to cheekh nikalti hai. Jab tak logon ko bilkul corner nahi kiya jaata, tab tak koi react nahi karta. If you are not pushed to the hilt, you won’t make the effort.
Gulzar: The most important thing is that you have to be yourself and not simply mirror trends or a herd thought. Be honest with yourself. Remember, you are the historian of your times. You are noting everything about the society that you are living in. Your work has an exchange with society, it doesn’t exist in isolation as it’s the history of people and the times. That’s the reason why I am also against the culture of remixing old Hindi songs. By remixing, you are simply destroying something that has a period and a thought behind it. One should preserve it as it is. It is unfair to the creator if you try to revisit it or contemporise something. If someone thought of a film in black and white, why colour it? Don’t damage it in the name of restoration.

Accha hai humein kisi ne thonk kar, kohni maar kar hila diya. Ahsaas ho gaya ki hum soye nahi hain.

Both of you have created a lot of content for children. Gulzar saab, you’ve voiced your concern about the dearth of content for kids. BT had also raised this point in its Children’s Day edition while speaking to a crosssection of filmmakers. What are your thoughts on it?
Gulzar: Children’s literature is neglected in our country. Having said that,we can’t force it on anyone to create it. It can’t be imposed. You can’t do anything unless you like children, bond with them and understand their psyche. In fact, major languages like Hindi and Urdu don’t have anything to offer children. We have imports from other countries, which are dubbed and dumped before them. You have to create stories for them all the time. Marathi, Malayalam and Bangla are the languages that offer a lot of literature for children. There’s a reason I never refuse a function or an invitation from a school. I like children. I have to confess: when I meet children, I know they are teaching me, I’m not teaching them anything. As individuals, you have to absorb that aspect and give it back to them as stories, poems, films.

Are Vishal and you working on something for kids?
We have been doing it for years, and we will continue to do so.