sampooran singh kalra, now 72, is one of india’s best known poets. born in 1936, this clean-shaven sikh worked as a car mechanic before he turned to writing full-time. like most urdu / hindi poets in india, he too achieved fame and glory thanks to bollywood. allegations have been made that he ‘stole’ poetry from the actress he had an affair with, a woman who herself was a melancholic poetess. because i love useless trivia i know that her last movie was his debut movie as director.
i don’t like all his poetry because it is sometimes pretentious, as if he revels in being esoteric and un-understood.
this simple nazm however caught my eye and i really enjoyed it. it is just a simple collection of thoughts on writer’s block, which the poet manages to take to a sublime romantic level by just the last two lines.
nazm ulajhii huii hai siine me.n
misare aTake hue hai.n hoTho.n par
u.Date-phirate hai.n titaliyo.n kii tarah
lafz kaaGaz pe baiThate hii nahii.n
kab se baiThaa huu.N mai.n jaanam
saade kaaGaz pe likhake naam teraa
bas teraa naam hii mukammal hai
isase bahatar bhii nazm kyaa hogii
incidentally the poet is better known as gulzar.
2 comments:
hmm.... so i didn't know thats his name. and which poetess are you talking about whose ideas he stole?
i really liked mera kuch saaman and my current fav is beedi jalyele!
but i have to admit, some of his stuff, like kajra re goes over my head.
meena kumari 'naaz'...she actually wrote pretty decent stuff. all suitably sad of course.
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