Gulzar a.k.a. Sampooran Singh

Gulzar is a poet, lyricist, director, and playwright from India. He has worked exhaustively in the Indian film industry for over 35 years. Gulzaar saab as he is affectionately known has the capability or writing in Hindi, Punjabi, and dialects of Hindi like Marwari (Rajasthani) and Bhojpuri. He is best known in India as a lyricist for songs that form an integral part of Indian cinema. Gulzar began his career under two other great artists - Bimal Roy and Hrishikesh Mukherjee. His book Ravi Paar has a stirring narrative of Bimal Roy and the agony of creation. Gulzar had leftist leanings (from an Indian perspective) in his early days that can be seen from his early movies (as director) like Mere Apne (translated as 'My dear ones'). He also depicted a flair for adapting stories / concepts from litteratire as well as other from other films. Angoor (translated as 'Grapes'), an adaptation of Shakespeare's Comedy of errors shall forever be remembered in Indian cinema. Gulzar also 'Indianized' 'The Sound of Music' superbly in 'Parichay' (translated as 'Introduction')