Today’s filmmakers, Gulzar says, are doing outstanding work. He singles out Nagesh Kukunoor’s Iqbal and Dor, Aparna Sen’s Mr & Mrs Iyer and Naseeruddin Shah’s Yun Hota To Kya Hota for special praise. “These films are close to my heart because they seem essentially literary,” he says. The textbook may be an old one, but the chapter that Bollywood’s younger filmmakers are adding to it is new. “I want to be an integral part of this process,” says Gulzar. “The essence of creativity is to keep growing all the time.” He has done just that, and how! His association with the gifted Mani Ratnam began with Dil Se… and is now set for an extension with the about-to-be-released Guru. “None of the filmmakers I am working with at present are new to me,” says Gulzar. “I have worked with all of them before.”

He’s been involved as lyricist with each one of Vishal Bhardwaj’s four directorial ventures — Makdee, Maqbool, The Blue Umbrella and Omkara — and is now all set to write the songs of the music director-turned-filmmaker’s next project, a period drama set in the days of World War II on the Burma-Japan border. “It was great working on the Omkara songs because of their sheer variety,” says Gulzar. “The album has a lullaby, a ballad, a romantic song, a thumri…” Guru, he adds, has pretty much the same sort of range. “It’s a treat working with AR Rahman. With him a song evolves in the manner of a poem. For him, I don’t have to write songs to fit predetermined formats.”

... contd.