Echoes and Eloquences: The Life and Cinema of Gulzar

Gulzar is a man of multiple identities. He is a poet, a short story writer, a scenarist and a dialogue writer. He also writes literature for children. However, in the collective consciousness of the nation, Gulzar is, above all, a filmmaker and lyricist.
Gulzar is one of Hindi cinema’s last surviving links with its golden era. What makes him truly special is that he has managed to move with the times without moving away from his poetic moorings.
Gulzar is one of Hindi cinema’s last surviving links with its golden era. What makes him truly special is that he has managed to move with the times without moving away from his poetic moorings.
Despite being an integral part of big, bad Bollywood, Gulzar soars above its messy mediocrity. His immense popularity, which hasn’t come at the cost of pandering to the lowest common denominator, rests primarily on the 17 feature films that he has directed and the countless lyrics that he has penned in a career spanning over four eventful decades.
Echoes & Eloquences is as much a critical appraisal of his cinematic output as it is a biography. It is an attempt to place his films and the fictional worlds they project in the context of his life and times. Gulzar’s films aren’t autobiographical in the least, but each of the cinematic narratives he has crafted with rare skill and diligence since debuting with the trend setting Mere Apne in 1971 reflects a bit of his unique personality and his worldview.
About the Book
Whether he is conjuring up exquisite lyrics, authoring delectable screenplays or directing profoundly moving celluloid odes, Gulzar, peerless poet, sensitive writer and outstanding filmmaker, is a consummate master of his craft. The world that the man behind the genius inhabit