Gulzar reads yet to be published poetry for Delhi audience

New Delhi: Noted poet and lyricist Gulzar, who is known for incorporating day to day life`s experiences into his work, recited few verses of his unpublished poetry for the audience at the Spring Festival here. Dressed in his trademark starched white kurta-pyjama, he recited his Urdu poetry urging people not to record it and put them on the internet prior to its official release. "I will recite only a few lines of this poetry and I request my audience here not to put them on Youtube because I am not yet done with it. They are still in the process of being written and will appear in my coming collection of poetry which will hit stores this year," Gulzar said at Penguin Book India`s Spring Fever Festival 2013 at the India Habitat Centre. The evening also witnessed the magic of storytelling by the 83-year-old Padma Bhushan awardee, who read from his upcoming book `Athaniyan` (Half a Rupee). He also shared few anecdotes from his life and how they have motivated him to write books. "All my work is experienced by me before I pen them down. They all are biographical stories and have infected me somehow. If in my stories, I discuss about a child, who thinks bomb explosions are normal then I have also penned down what made him feel so," said Gulzar. He read four short stories from his book ? Life on the Mumbai Streets, Saheb and Jadu, Gughu and Jamini and Story of a suicide bomber. The stories were originally written in Urdu and Gulzar has translated them into Hindi. The book is now also being translated to English by Indonesian based writer Sunjoy Shekhar. "...Before I met Sunjoy, all my work was written in Urdu, but it was his initiative to translate my work into Englsh. When my books are translated to English, it feels my story has been ironed," he added. PTI