Pukhraj

Title: Pukhraj (पुखराज)
Author: Gulzar
Publisher: Rupa & Co.
Language: Hindi
Format: Paperback
Pages: 180
ISBN: 81-7167-226-4
Year of Publication: 2005

Description:

Pukhraj is a collection of poetry by Gulzar, bringing together the qualities that make his writing immediately recognizable: spare language, unusual imagery, emotional restraint, memory, intimacy and an extraordinary attentiveness to ordinary moments.

Gulzar is known across generations for his film songs, screenwriting and direction, but poetry lies at the center of his creative identity. Pukhraj gives readers the opportunity to encounter that voice away from the screen, in poems where images and emotions are allowed to stand quietly on their own. Publisher descriptions characterize the volume as a compilation of Gulzar’s poetry and emphasize that the poetic sensibility familiar from his songs, dialogues and films originates in his identity as a poet.

The collection is particularly appealing to readers who enjoy modern Hindi poetry that is literary without being forbidding. Gulzar can move from love and absence to memory, time, relationships and everyday observation with remarkably few words. His images often linger after the poem has ended, giving Pukhraj the kind of book one returns to rather than simply reads once.

Why We Love It at India Club

Gulzar makes the smallest moments shimmer with memory, longing and meaning. Pukhraj reminds us why, beneath the celebrated lyricist and filmmaker, there has always been first and foremost a poet.