All time Favourite Gulzar Songs!

Subhash K Jha Selects  His Favourite Gulzar  Songs

1.     Humne dekhi hai  unn aankhon ki mehakti  khushboo haath se  chuke isse rishton ko ilzaam na do(Khamoshi):   Pyar  ko pyar  hi rehne do koi naam na do. While many of  Gulzar Saab’s  lyrics  suffer  from over-esotericism , this one is  poetic and  yet practical in its thought  process…it stands  out on every level including Lataji’s singing. Sadly  the song’s impact  was substantially diminished  in the film by being picturized on an unknown starlet while the  beautiful Waheeda Rehman just stared. Imagine if  the same had been done to Aaj phir jeene ki tamannah hai!

2.     Musafir hoon yaaron na ghar hai na thikana(Parichay):  Gulzar Saab’s closest friend in  the  entertainment  industry    was   composer Rahul  Dev Burman. One night way past midnight  Pancham showed  up at Boskiana, Gulzar Saab’s bungalow, excited as hell. He  dragged  Gulzar Saab  into  a car  for a drive  and played the tune he had composed for Musafir hoon yaaron. Burman  always complained how difficult it  was to give  music to Gulzar Saab’s  lyrics. “Next  you wll bring me the newspaper headline and tell me to tune it,” RD scoffed. Not this one. Not this time. Musafir a song about the journey of  life makes  complete sense  even today.

3.     Tere bina  zindagi se  koi shikwa  toh nahin(Aandhi): I have to admit this is not one  of my favourite Gulzar –RD songs except when   Lataji lifts the lyrics to a luminously  layered level. When she sings Jee main aata hai  teri daaman mein sarr chupa ke hum rote rahen, time stops still. I  rate this  among Gulzar’s best for these  lines alone.Interesting RD had first  composed this  number  as a  Bengali song  for  Durga Puja.

4.      Koi hota jissko apna hum apna keh lete yaaron (Mere Apne): Gulzar Saab’s contribution  to the  Lonely Hearts  Club , composer Salil Choudhary gets  optimum vocal pain out of Kishore  Kumar, making this one of  the singer’s most heartbreaking numbers.  Kishoreda who had also sung the Bengali  version of  the same song, confessed  to someone very close to him that this was  the  song of his  life.

5.     Mera kuch saamaan tumhare  paas pada  hai(Ijaazat): No rhyming metre, just random  thoughts about a  broken relationship put together  like shards  of glass  on  the floor piercing the  soul .This is  Gulzar Saab at his rawest. Apparently he wrote this  number  as a  hark back to his own broken marriage .  The wounds  that that never heal are the  hurt that we  need to preserve  in  our hearts hoping they never would heal.