SOUL OF A POET

In a new book, lyricist Anand Bakshi’s son pays tribute to the legend

- ANJULY MATHAI

Anand Bakshi built his legacy on an edifice of words. But the man behind the edifice always remained invisible. That is the way he wanted it. “Let us not forget the actor is the face of our songs,” Bakshi says in Nagme, Kisse, Baatein, Yaadein, a new biography on him by his son Rakesh Anand Bakshi. “We lyricists are best if invisible. The audience must feel it is the character’s song, not mine….”

So when Dharmendra sang, “Aayaa hai mujhe phir yaad wo zalim, guzara zamana bachpan ka, haay re akele chhod ke jana, aur na aanaa bachpan ka (I am cruelly reminded of those childhood days again; how they deserted me, never to return…)”, in Devar (1966), no one saw the lonely soul who longed to go back to his beloved Rawalpindi, where he had spent his first 18 years before his life was torn asunder by the Partition. Or, when Shashi Kapoor sang, “Kabhi pehele dekha nahin yeh sama, ke main bhool se aa gaya hoon kahan. Yahan main ajnabi hoon (Never have I seen such a place, where have I wandered into? I am a stranger here)”, in Jab Jab Phool Khile (1965), no one saw the solitary figure who had given up life in the Army and come to Bombay to try his luck as a lyricist—a “stranger in a strange land”.

NAGME, KISSE, BAATEIN, YAADEIN: THE LIFE & LYRICS OF ANAND BAKSHI

By Rakesh Anand Bakshi

Published by Penguin Random House India Price ₹599; pages 352