Gulzar speaking!       

[Laughs] Do you know that a Pakistani friend once complained that I had single-handedly ruined the carefully preserved, traditionally-nurtured and fostered image of poets?  Aap dus baje so jate ho aur subah uthkar, knicker pehen kar tennis khelte ho? Tauba - Tauba! Aur phir BidiJalai Le ... from the same pen that gave us magical songs from Bandini, Aandhi, Mausam, Ijazat? Kheriyat to hai?!  I was both amused and irritated.  Isn’t it time we abandon the ghisa-pita and archaic ideas of how poetry should be written & poets should play out their lives? Its 2020 and the Mughals have left! Why can’t a poet lead a normal life – go to a restaurant, enjoy dancing and socialising, play badminton/tennis, jog, drink in moderation & engage in pursuits, non-poetic? Problem is, whether through movies or the media, the feudal image of the poet has been fixated in popular imagination and any breakaway is considered blasphemy!  To the evolved & discerning, both Bidi Jalai Le & Kajra Re were steeped in poetry and in context with the situation.  The razzle-dazzle and glamorous spice that blinded the viewers were obviously due to the sizzling performers – Amitabh, Ash, Abhishek & Bipasha Basu!  The audience obviously chose to concentrateon the sizzle, not the steak! 

I vehemently beg to differ and feel it’s unfair, uninformed, unrealistic & completely out of context! Mercifully, opinions are not facts!  Let me explain.  No one doubts the greatness of a Naushad, Roshan, Madan Mohan, Shanker-Jaikishen, SD Burman and their masterpieces, but remember they operated in a different era. It was a more related time and thairav ruled.  Life was sorted.  Today’s insane pace, insecurities, crazy competition along with a zillion digitalised entertainment platforms targeting a spoilt-for-choices audience-base is a totally different music-scape.  Those masters worked maybe in not more than a couple of films a year at a leisurely pace. No wonder quality arrived.  Today we produce over 700 films a year.  It’s a jungle out there with everyone eyeing the prized projects. You no longer experience – you consume.  You don’t create – you produce music in these nano-second times.  Quality with speed is the mantra and the techniques of producing music have undergone dramatic changes too. The Orchestra has vanished and technology has taken over.

Besides, unlike yesteryears, not all movie-makers are music-literate and solid, intense meaningful discussions are out.  In these non-music-inspired times,you still have a host of gifted names ... A.R. Rehman, Shankar-Ehsan-Loy, Vishal Bhardwaj, Shantanu Moitra, Pritam, Jatin-Lalit, Vishal Shekhar ...Admittedly, not all of them produce great music all the time – since music is not manufactured but created and there are several intangibles that influence the end product – but the fact of the matter is, whenever the right inspiration comes along, magic does happen.  So, at the end of the day, music – be it lyric, composition or singer – today functions in the market place where a chaotic foot-tapping,dance-friendly-numbers are the flavour of the day.  Wouldn’t it be interesting to pause and wonder how the old masters would function in today’s landscape?  Think about it ...