At Jashn-e-Rekhta, Gulzar revisits the making of Mirza Ghalib

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At the inaugural session of the tenth Jashn-e-Rekhta Festival, the hall fell quiet the moment Gulzar began to speak. He spoke as a man looking back at a work he believes destiny placed in his hands. The 1988 television series Mirza Ghalib, now widely regarded as the definitive screen portrait of the nineteenth-century poet, was almost a project that never happened. When it finally did, Gulzar felt the universe had already selected its Ghalib.

“I believe I was meant to make Mirza Ghalib with Naseeruddin Shah,” he said. He remembered how a young Shah had once written to him from FTII declaring himself the rightful heir to the role. “He had written, ‘You wait for me. I am coming to the industry.’”

A long-delayed dream

Gulzar’s affinity for Ghalib is rooted in his