Title
– Caged: Memories Have Names
Translated
by – Sathya Saran
Publisher
– Penguin Hamish Hamilton
ISBN
– 978-0670098231
Hardcover
– 256 Pages
Buy
– Amazon | Padhega India
“I was trying to catch a butterfly. She escaped, but
left her colours on my fingers.”
Gulzar opens his autobiography with a delicate image: a butterfly escapes from
the poet’s grasp, but leaves its colours behind on his fingertips. Like a
memory or trace of a loved one, the poet gathers its fleeting hues, whatever he
can, and weaves them into verse.
Doesn’t the title Caged mislead at first? When I first heard
it, the image of a prison came to my mind, a sense of forced confinement. But
Gulzar, as always, reshapes the metaphor. The cage becomes an archive, a vessel
for memory, and fragile memory needs to be preserved. These poems carry the
names, the voices, the colours he refuses to let go.
Published as a bilingual edition, this book is a quiet gift to readers who know that to read Gulzar in the original is to hear the music whole. Sathya Saran has translated the book with grace. In her words, the process was “a
journey through changing light,” a phrase that captures both the nature of
memory and the pulse of his poetry.
Those who have read Actually, I Met Them... will recognise
the theme: portraits, tributes, vignettes. But where that book offered prose,
Caged is composed of more distilled and intimate poems. It’s less an
autobiography than a play of light and shadow—part elegy, part celebration. The
book is divided into four sections, the first anchored mainly in literary
figures.
The first piece on Rabindranath Tagore — "a poet who
stands like a crop, growing across all of Bengal." Gulzar recalls
learning Bangla simply to read him. His lifelong reverence is no secret.
Then, Ghalib.
"ज़माना हर ज़बाँ में पढ़ रहा है अब, तुम्हारे सब
सुख़न ग़ालिब
समझते
कितने हैं, ये तो वही समझें, या तुम समझो।"
Gulzar adds that he has read poets in every Indian
language, but has never found another like Ghalib.
Across these pages, Shakespeare, Rumi, Jibanananda Das, and
Nazim Hikmet emerge not merely as literary giants but as living presences,
folded into the fabric of Gulzar’s memory. Neruda, Faiz, and Sunil Gangopadhyay each evoked not just for their words, but for the echo of their voices in his
life. Take Namdeo Dhasal’s funeral, for instance: “even the flames from his
pyre could not reduce the intensity of his poetry to ashes.” He was the
people’s poet. A flag holder for the Dalit cause.
Gulzar is not just what he remembers, but how he remembers.
There’s an anecdote with Kedarnath Singh: upon seeing the printed lyrics of
Hamko Mann ki Shakti Dena, Singh was surprised. “Is this also written by you?”
he asked. “This is sung in schools.” I bowed my head in acceptance. Then he
said, “What a lucky man you are—tumhara kaam tumhare naam se aage nikal
gaya.”
There is a poem dedicated to a girl with terminal cancer who
once requested: “मुझको एक छोटे से शेर में सी दो / ‘अंजल’ लिखना /
शायद मेरी आख़िरी शब है”
And Gulzar, as promised, stitched her name into a verse. The gesture is tender,
his writing shaped not by experience, but by empathy.
The book is rich with friendships—Javed Akhtar, Bimal Roy,
Naseeruddin Shah. Of Shah, he writes: “Main adaakar hoon lekin / sirf
adaakar nahin / waqt ki tasveer bhi hoon.” Gulzar also remembers Jagjit
Singh: the very spirit of the ghazal, settled in him like musk in the navel of
the deer. His voice, yes—but more than that, his thehrav, his ache.
Who can forget what he gave to Ghalib — Gulzar directing,
Naseeruddin Shah inhabiting the poet, Jagjit giving voice to his wounds. Gulzar
still calls it his most complete work. Perhaps because, for once, everything
aligned. The finest artists, unguarded. And then—something like magic unfolds.
“उतरो आओ आँखों से काग़ज़ पर
तुम्हारी धुन पर कुछ अल्फ़ाज़ रख दूँ!”
Pancham, Salil Chowdhury, Kanu Roy, all remembered not
just as co-workers but as co-dreamers. Friends: in creation, in mischief, in
melancholy. He remembers Asha Boudi—Asha Bhonsle—not with formality but with
fondness, a sapling of musical notes, he calls her.
There are other memories, quieter, more aching. Of Meena:
shutting her eyes, she fell asleep/ and died/ did not even take a breath
afterwards/ after a long eventful life / filled with torturous trials/ how
simple and easy her death!
‘Caged’ is a gallery of elegies, love letters to the
departed. Some of the most piercing are reserved for Amjad Khan and Sanjeev
Kumar. Gulzar writes not merely of their absence, but of what lingers. In his
verses, death is not an end but a bond beyond flesh.
A sketch of
a friend—Amjad Khan—whom he is about to bury: “Main neem-andheri qabr mein /
sula raha tha jab use / woh neem-v-nigaah se / dekhta raha mujhe... /
hatheliyon se aankh ke chirag bhi bhuja diye / ke do jahaan ke silsile / zameen
par hi chuka diye.”
Gulzar does not mourn—because even in the silence of the
grave, he listens for his breath.
The metaphysics of death, of what remains, and what must be
buried, flicker through these verses. Sanjeev Kumar, too, appears as a
confidant, someone Gulzar could tell what he couldn’t tell anyone else. Later,
the lens widens, and more artists come into the light: Birju Maharaj and
Hariprasad Chaurasia. And then a portrait of Van Gogh, whom he first
encountered through Irving Stone’s Lust for Life, and he becomes a mirror to
his own artistic struggles. In moments of despair, that biography was his
guiding light.
The final chapter, the most personal one. Gulzar turns
inward to his family. Rakhee, Meghna, and his grandson Samay. Pali, his dog, whom
he never once called ‘Dog’. And, finally this brief poem, like a breath caught
in the chest: "गिरह ऐसी लगी है जैसे कि नाभि का रिश्ता हो / जो कट जाने पर
भी उम्र भर कटता नहीं है."
How does one write about Caged? It is not a memoir. It
is not poetry. It is a book of farewells and of bonds that refuse to loosen. A
butterfly’s trace on the fingertips—never caught, never forgotten.
About the Author
Gulzar, one of India's leading poets, is a greatly respected scriptwriter and
film director. He has been one of the most popular lyricists in mainstream
Hindi cinema, gaining international fame when he won an Oscar and a Grammy for
the song 'Jai ho'. Gulzar received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 2002, the Padma
Bhushan in 2004, the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 2014 and the Jnanpith Award in
2024. He lived and works in Mumbai.
Translator
After 12 years as Editor of Femina which was declared a
Superbrand, Sathya Saran chose to be a full-time author, part
time teacher and a columnist. Her books include the acclaimed
biographies, Ten Years with Guru Dutt Abrar Alvi’s Journey, Baat
Niklegi toh Phir: The Life and Music of Jagjit Singh, Sun Mere Bandhu Re:
The Musical World of SD Burman and Hariprasad Chaurasia: Breath of
Gold. She also has a book of short stories The Dark Side. Caged is
her first book as a translator.
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