Gulzar on words, tunes and the works

What is the magic ingredient between Vishal Bhardwaj and you?
Well, I don’t know how far this current will go. Working with Vishal is certainly an experience. He has grown from a music director to a film director with me. So, I feel I have participated in my kid’s journey. Vishal is very spontaneous and completely uninhibited in his thinking. If he can understand and relate to a word, he goes with it. For example, the song Fatak in Kaminey talks of AIDS in a red-light area. Only Vishal could have gone with it.

Talking about Kaminey, the word is an abuse but how did you make it sound like a caress in the title track?
The word kaminey is not a bad word per se, it is also a word of affection. For example, when a mother tells her son, “Tu bada kamina ho gaya hai, saat mahine se milne nahin aaya apni maa se.” It turns bad when you hear the villain mouthing it and adding a kutte to it. In that sense, kutte kaminey is a gaali. I’ve been using the word kaminey with my friends for years. The other day, Omji (Puri) had come over for tea and just when he was leaving, he told me, “This time I’m going back disappointed.” I asked him the reason and he said, “Ek ghante se baitha hoon aur ek baar bhi aap ne kaminey nahin kaha. Mazaa nahin aaya.” It’s just that this affectionate shade of the word has not been used in poetry till date which is why everyone is making a big deal about it.

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