Niharika Lal (BOMBAY TIMES; December 19, 2018)

The last day of Jashn-e-Rekhta saw the venue swarming with people who had come to attend Vishal Bhardwaj’s session, and while most were expecting a discussion on politics, Shakespeare and Bollywood, they were left pleasantly surprised when Vishal unveiled his inner poet and started reciting shayari from his all-time favourite, Bashir Badr, as well as his own. Vishal’s shayaris were unique not only because of topicality, but also because he spoke about the modern man’s woes like Google Maps, network, phone and e-mails, too.

‘JAB ISS TARAH KA SUPPRESSION HOTA HAI, USS WAQT ART ZYADA KHILTI HAI’
Vishal Bhardwaj spoke about the Sabarimala temple issue through his first shayari, which concluded with, “...pujte ho devi ko lekin aurat ko mandir mein nahi jane dete, aap bhi bas”. Talking to the audience, he said, “Aaj ke waqt mein toh ‘Bol ke lab azad hain tere’ bahut hi zaruri hai. Mujhe lagta hai jab bhi iss tarah ka suppression hota hai, uss waqt art sabse zyada khilti hai, kyunki jab tak koi dabayega nahin hamare gale ko, toh hamari cheekh kaise niklegi?”

Vishal also spoke about how phones keep making their way into his ghazals, saying, “Meri ghazlon mein phone ghoom-phir ka aata rehta hai, mere har naye sher mein phone aa hi jata hai.” He then went on to recite his phone-inspired ghazals, “‘Aankh ka lihaj tha ya ke hausla na tha, usne text mein likha keh sake jo lab nahi.’ Ek aur hai, ‘Woh baat karte-karte hi khamosh ho gaya, mujhko laga network toot gaya’. We also keep checking travel time on Google Maps even if we know that we won’t go, so I wrote this, ‘Tumse milna namumkin hai, phir bhi dhoondte hain Google pe ki ab nikle toh kab tere ghar pahunchenge’.”

‘IRRFAN WANTED A FEW MORE LINES SO I WROTE ‘MAIN’ IN HAIDER’
In Haider, Irrfan recites a nazm, Main – “Darya bhi main, darakht bhi main … Jhelum bhi main, chinar bhi main … dair bhi hoon, haram bhi hoon … Shia bhi hoon, Sunni bhi hoon, main hoon pandit … main tha, main hoon aur main hi rahoonga,” – which became quite popular after the film’s release. Talking about why he wrote these lines, the director said, “There was a scene between Irrfan and Narendra Jha, and Irrfan asked me to give him more lines. I told him that if I will write more, toh woh shayari ho jayegi. Usne kaha, haan mujhe shayari karni hai, that’s when I wrote this.”

‘FINANCER TOLD ME NOBODY WILL GIVE YOU MONEY’
Talking about literature, Vishal Bhardwaj said that the film industry resists literature because they consider it to be boring. He said, “On my script, it was written, ‘inspired from Shakespeare’, and a financer friend told me that I should remove Shakespeare’s name from my script because nobody would give me money. Whenever we talk about literature, the first thing that one assumes is that it must be boring because anything related to literature is boring, which is definitely not true. In school, Shakespeare scares you, I think the age when I read Shakespeare was the right age, for me. In gang wars, people kill each other and it ends there, but I wanted to go deep to find out the equations of a gang war. Maine bahut shiddat se usko chaha tha, toh woh mujhe mil gaya.”

Before the session ended, Vishal sang some songs for the audience including, Yeh Ishq hai and Pehli baar mohabbat ki hai, and the audience responded by giving him a thunderous applause for the performance.