Actually... I Met Them book review: In new memoir, Gulzar doesn't hold back his awe and fondness for those who've shaped him

When we are spellbound by the brilliance of poets, musicians, and filmmakers, it can be hard to remember that talent is not self-made; it is honed in the company of peers and mentors. Gulzar’s new book Actually…I Met Them offers this important reminder. It shows how this man, who is hugely respected in the worlds of literature, music, and cinema, started out. He celebrates the “great gurus and colleagues” who have made an impact on his life and his art.

Published by Penguin Random House, this memoir has 18 chapters. Each one is about a person that Gulzar was closely associated with. The chapters were first written in Bengali, and then translated into English by Maharghya Chakraborty. The original collection is titled Panta Bhate, and was put together by Sanchari Mukherjee, who worked for the Sunday edition of a Bengali newspaper. She used to fly down to Mumbai, and Gulzar used to narrate the stories to her.

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Gulzar writes, “I spoke in the first person in Hindi, Bengali, English, and Urdu; she framed all of it in good Bengali.” If Gulzar’s knowledge of Bengali is news to you, the chapter on filmmaker Bimal Roy will fill you in on the details. He writes, “(Rabindranath) Tagore caught hold of me, or it was I who caught hold of him, when I was in class eight.” Over the next two years, he read Tagore, Saratchandra Chattopadhyay, and Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay in Urdu translation.

Born in Dina, a town in present-day Pakistan, Gulzar moved to Mumbai as a young man. His worldview was shaped by the people he met through organisations such as the Progressive Writers’ Association and the Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA). Many of them also worked in films. He writes, “The people there, their preoccupations and the sharpness of their intellect, their energetic debates, all of these began to work on me like a drug.”

One of these people was music composer and political organiser Salil Chowdhury. Gulzar knew him from the Bombay Youth Choir and IPTA. Chowdhury was also a member of the Communist Party of India. Gulzar’s ability to conjure up memorable images is evident in his description of Chowdhury. He writes, “The kind of intoxication and energy that bursts forth when you shake and uncork a bottle of champagne – Salilda was that kind of a person.”

The book paints an affectionate portrait of Roy, who treated Gulzar with kindness and respect. Gulzar met him thanks to his roommate Debu Sen, who worked as an assistant to Roy. Gulzar was heartbroken when he learnt that Roy was undergoing treatment for cancer, and was unlikely to survive for long. He viewed Roy as a father-figure. “With his passing, all the pain that I had stowed away for my father seemed to find closure,” writes Gulzar.

Each chapter has a unique personality because Gulzar highlights the idiosyncrasies of the people he had the privilege to know. In the chapter on actor-singer Kishore Kumar, he writes, “Once there was a producer who went to his house seeking a meeting. Kishoreda was not in the mood to talk to him at that time. He used to have this astounding cupboard that hid a secret staircase within. Kishoreda simply opened the cupboard, stepped in, and disappeared!”

The book is peppered with hilarious and heartwarming anecdotes, which will be of interest to fans of the icons featured here. You may not have known, for instance, that music composer Rahul Dev Burman aka Panchamda used to cook meals for Gulzar. He writes, “Pancham used to grow a variety of chillies. Some from Burma, or Singapore, or native strains from Sri Lanka… He would cross-breed different types, and produce new kinds of chillies.”

Who are the other people that Gulzar has written about? Hemanta Mukhopadhyay, Satyajit Ray, Sanjeev Kumar, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Pandit Ravi Shankar, Samaresh Basu, Basu Bhattacharya, Ritwik Ghatak, Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, Mahasweta Devi, Suchitra Sen, and Tarun Majumdar!

My favourite chapter is the one on writer and activist Mahasweta Devi. Gulzar recalls the time they met at the Frankfurt Book Fair in Germany. The year was 2006, and India was the guest of honour. Devi was invited to talk about India’s culture, heritage, and literature. Gulzar was so deeply moved by her words that his eyes welled up. He met her over breakfast the following day. In the book, he writes, “I walked up to Didi, got down on my knees, and placed my head on her lap. She fondly kissed me on my forehead.”

Chintan Girish Modi is a freelance writer, journalist and book reviewer.