On a day of pelting rain in Mumbai, when the high-rises fade into grey silhouettes, a small slope in Pali Hill leads to one of India's most festive modern posts. Boskiyaana, 92-year-old poet and filmmaker Gulzar's house, sits in a quiet amid glass and concrete reaching the sky. The raised road, reminder of a city that has seen built several films over, but still white bungalow to live in somewhat smaller space, tucked in past and unmoved in verdict of present - not very unlike world above.
As it is well known, Boskiyaana is named after his daughter, Bosky, filmmaker Meghna Gulzar. What is less known is that Boskiyaana came from his father, Makhanlal, who ran a silk variety known for being soft and delicate. The idea, however, is from another time and place. Gulzar's father was a textile trader in Pakistan's Dina, an unassuming village located along the Grand Trunk Road in the Jhelum district of Pakistani Punjab. The poet once joked that if he had a son, he would have named him Latha ki tarah white budget-family cotton.
It is the warp and weft of this metaphorical silk that runs through Gulzar's life, with decades spent spinning a small slope on language into an artform: making the ordinary feel just as new, weaving phrases as if they were pashmina-like phrases of love and loss: “Goli maro. Magar Khuda ko pyar se, seene se, chand ki khaat wulf nuzur….” , which continue to linger.
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A long house of Vittala Ghosh carved in white marble stands guard at one end of the book-lined, exposed-stone wall in the poet's living room. A specially curated side, the poet's voice drifts in from his book-drowned study - discussion on the matter of his new book. That this conversation? His writing on self side in his trademark white, starched kurta pyjama, the frame finder now, hair a shade from salt-and-pepper to white. In a soft deep voice, the years seem to melt away. "I've just changed my iPad. And this old cover did not fit, so this one needs to be bought," he says, settling on an ottoman.
For a writer who has spent decades measuring the weight of feet on pavement, the idea of this is anachronistic. That world of feet on pavement, 11-year-old Gulzar telling his grandmother, “Mr. Syal, today Patience on the iPad and not in ear. It may be steeped in rhythms of the past but has embraced new phases with curiosity.”
Sitting in Gulzar's home that has lost a century-old friendship but also 92nd birthday and clutching his latest book Aasman Mein Mil - My City In Stories - Hindi and English translation by Rakshanda Jalil - 'home' becomes obvious subject to open with, one that is built and another that is preserved in memory. Gulzar's story also has these two homes, ones that have been lost in Partition, the home that has been constant refrain in his writing, including Raavi Paar and Footprints on Zero Line. Writing on the Partition - "There is a thing like long time," he says, of himself. His friend, Bimal Roy, who also lost his home in Partition and was also asked "Bimal da" (Bimal Roy), said to him not to go back. "He said something which remains in your mind. When you visit those places which are existing in your mind. When you were in Lahore, my friends and I down to Bhawalpur. Lahore, my friends and I down to... Behum... I found my gully and I was soaked. It was the same as I was. I visited the need, the family house because it was a refuge primary school, and after Partition, it became a block named after me. The inscription read: Sampooran Singh Kalra - after me. Another named after Fatima Jinnah. The farmland was gone but someone said of a school that is still there. "We have a tree called tahi ki tahni - the tree has wilted but it is still there," he says. In 1988, with Jnanpith Award and Sahitya Akademi fellowship among numerous other accolades, Gulzar has long been more than a poet - he has been a bridge.
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Eventually Gulzar found his way into Bimal Roy's world. His first writing credit came with Bandini (1963), for which he wrote dialogues and then go on to make his directorial debut with Mere Apne (1971). He recalls time when Mumbai Desai was chief minister and amidst prohibitions, alcohol was not served. Whisky was unavailable in Parsi bars, "That B K Kapoor was available in Parsi bars, where alcohol was served with salt to be licked along," says the poet. Characters drinking is a theme often appear in his stories, including in Met ke Mere. Mere Niche, "The way people lived in bungalows, it was full of life. Poverty was there but you never felt ashamed of it. There was pride and dignity of our lives," says Gulzar.
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