A Portrait Framed in Awe

A deeply conflicted reading of a long-awaited Gulzar biography—where devotion overwhelms discovery, and the translation outshines

- By SHANTANU RAY CHAUDHURI

Now, this one is hard to write about. For one, the subject is someone I have admired for ages.

And the Hindi original by Yatindra Mishra—a man steeped in culture and writerly virtues—had been years in the making, so I approached it with great expectations. Eventually, it turned out to be a major disappointment. Writing about its translation, therefore, is doubly hard—translated into English as Gulzar Saab: Life, Writings & Cinema by Sathya Saran. How does one separate the translation from the original? And if the translation feels more coherent and reader-friendly, does the credit go to the translator, or was there something flawed in my reading of the original?

When a writer is granted rare access to an artist as iconic and reclusive as Gulzar, one expects the result to be a treasure trove—an intimate, insightful, and structurally coherent portrait of the man behind the words. Yatindra Mishra’s Gulzar Saab: Hazaar Rahein Mud Ke Dekhi, ambitious in scope and drenched in admiration, certainly sets out to be that. It is a deeply earnest work, rich in information and reverence. Yet, despite its immense promise, it falters in execution—a case of overwhelming material let down by a lack of narrative control, thematic focus, and editorial discipline.