Amazon is back with the ‘Best of 2020’ edition of 'Book Bazaar', celebrating reading with special prices and a curated selection. End this year picking up books recommended by Gulzar, who is our Author of the Month.
A stalwart of Indian literature and one of the finest poets in Urdu/Hindustani, Gulzar is an icon who needs no introduction and is an uncontested authority on all things poetry. So, it was only natural for us to try and wheedle out what he thought his best-loved works were and we definitely weren’t disappointed! Read on to find out which works the legend has enjoyed working on the most:
Baaghbaan (The Gardener) (2016)
Baaghbaan marks the irresistible coming together of two giants of poetry – Rabindranath Tagore and Gulzar. Drawing on some of Tagore's most well-known poetry collections, from Chitra to Kshanika, Gulzar's translation provides a whole new insight to the Bard of Bengal. Including the original in Bengali and Tagore's own English translations of the same, this is a must for all lovers of poetry and literature.
Footprints on Zero Line: Writings on the Partition (2017)
The Partition of 1947 has influenced the works of an entire generation of writers, including Gulzar, and continues to do so. He witnessed the horrors of Partition first-hand and so, it is a theme that he has gone back to again and again in his writings. Gulzar’s unerring eye does not stop at the events of 1947 but looks at how it continues to affect our lives to this day.
Two (2017)
Gulzar’s first novel, Two sheds light on what the Partition entailed for ordinary people. This powerful book is a meditation on the fact that the division of India and the carnage that followed, once set into motion, kept happening inexorably and ceaselessly, and people affected by the upheaval never found another home; they kept looking for a place called home, a place to belong to.
A dazzling blend between these personal favourites is Gulzar’s latest volume of Indian poetry, A Poem A Day. This prestigious volume showcases 365 memorable poems – a poem for every day of the year written over the seven decades since Independence by some of the leading poets of the Indian Subcontinent. Originally written by some 279 poets in 34 Indian languages, the poems appear in bilingual versions: in English and in Hindustani, as translated by the legend himself.
A true collector's item, A Poem a Day belongs on the shelf of any litterateur!
