Why Gulzar has to wait for DLitt

Poets like Gulzar keep alive the mellifluous thrum of Urdu. File pic

This story, stripped to the bare bones, is prosaic: The Union Education Ministry did not respond to the University of Allahabad's letter seeking permission to confer on its convocation day an honorary DLitt degree on poet, lyricist and filmmaker Gulzar. The ministry's silence kindles hope that Gulzar might still be honoured on another day.

But the details of the story beguile. It can be read as an example of the cussedness of bureaucrats, or as a testament to Hindutva's disregard for syncretism, or as evidence of the fading away of a multicultural, multilingual India. Or it can be read as a tribute to the admiration of an aficionado of Urdu poetry for one of its most famous exponents.

The story began on July 20, when Professor Prashant Kumar Ghosh, dean of the Faculty of Commerce, wrote a letter to Sangita Srivastava, chairperson of the Academic Council, suggesting that the Allahabad University should bestow a DLitt degree upon Gulzar. Ghosh attached the poet's biodata with his letter, stating that Gulzar's real name is Sampooran Singh Kalra, who was born to Sikh parents on August 18, 1934 in Dina, Jhelum district, now in Pakistan.

Ghosh, presumably, did this to ensure nobody mistook Gulzar for Muslim. Surprised? Remember, Allahabad is in Uttar Pradesh, the cradle of Hindutva. On August 4, the Academic Council unanimously endorsed Ghosh's proposal. Srivastava then asked Ghosh to seek Gulzar's consent for accepting the degree.

Ghosh called up to tell Gulzar that there were tears in his eyes as his cherished dream had been fulfilled. Could he have Gulzar's consent for the DLitt degree? No, shot back the poet. A pause later, Gulzar said it was Ghosh who must give the consent on his behalf - a poetic way of saying yes.

On August 17, the university's Executive Council, too, assented to honouring Gulzar at the convocation scheduled for September 23. Within days, the varsity wrote to the Union Education Ministry seeking approval for its decision.

Sure, our bureaucracy is considered Kafkaesque because of its tendency to inexplicably reject the most reasonable request. Sure, there was only a month between the request made to the Education Ministry and the convocation. Really, who could imagine bureaucrats, unlikely to know the Alif of Urdu, sitting in judgement on Gulzar's oeuvre?

The September 23 convocation was postponed to November 8 because of the sudden unavailability of the Chief Rector, the Governor of Uttar Pradesh. The ministry now had 45 additional days to grant permission. The letter never came before November 8; the university was denied its tryst with Gulzar - and Ghosh the opportunity to offer gurudakshina to his guru. Gulzar as guru?

When Ghosh was in his early 20s, he had gone to Bombay, where one Saturday he and his cinematographer friend Ashfaque Ahmad called on the latter's brother Meraj, then the chief assistant director to Gulzar, in hospital. Gulzar was due to visit Meraj the same evening. Already a budding poet, Ghosh decided to meet the master. Audaciously, Ghosh requested a one-to-one with Gulzar, who agreed.

On the following day, at 10 am, Ghosh appeared at Gulzar's residence. They had tea together, then breakfast, then lunch, then dinner. A relationship was threaded together by the novice's admiration for the master, who was generous with his time and responses, and it deepened with time as Ghosh's love for poetry, too, deepened, a love he seeks to imbibe in students.

Every academic year, to the new batch of undergraduate students, Ghosh writes four spellings of the Urdu equivalent of the word "chain" on the blackboard: Zanjeer, janzeer, zanzeer and janjeer. He asks them to choose the correct one. Most get it wrong. He tells them the difference between kamar (waist) and qamar (moon). To students, he explains that the knowledge of Urdu will ensure they do not make mistakes in the civil services examinations, which most of them will write in Hindi.

To fathom how an icon can reciprocate his admirer's devotion, cut to December 2002, when the University of Lucknow requested Ghosh to introduce Gulzar before an interactive session with him. After the session ended, Gulzar was felicitated with a pashmina shawl. Gulzar requested "Prashant and Bahu Rani [the professor's wife]" to come to the stage. Gulzar wrapped the pashmina shawl around Bahu Rani, and clasping her and Ghosh's hand, asked to be photographed.

The Allahabad University still hopes to host a reception for Gulzar whenever the permission to bestow on him the DLitt degree is granted. But that might entail a long wait, for poets like Gulzar keep alive the mellifluous thrum of Urdu, which the ruling regime believes is a religious marker of Muslims, whom it never tires of demonising.

Gulzar also embodies Bollywood's syncretism that has been under attack from the Hindutva brigade. A child of Partition, Gulzar, in the 2017 Amritsar Literature Festival, hoped, "We will cross the man-made borders one day." The Allahabad University, where poets like Firaq Gorakhpuri, Dharamvir Bharati and Harivansh Rai Bachchan once taught, forgot that it is no longer supposed to bridge the deliberately created Hindi-Urdu or Hindu-Muslim chasm in Uttar Pradesh. Gulzar must, therefore, wait to be honoured.

The writer is a senior journalist. Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com
The views expressed in this column are the individual's and don't represent those of the paper.