Gulzar gets the Dada Saheb Phalke Award

on Apr 15, 2014

Lyricist, poet, writer & director Gulzar will be the 45th recipient of the prestigious Dada Saheb Phalke award for the year 2013 .

Born as Sampooran Singh Kalra in 1934, Gulzar, got his first break with Bimal Roy’s Bandini . He then went on to work with leading music directors including Sachin Dev Burman, Salil Chowdhury, Shankar Jaikishan, Hemant Kumar, Laxmikant-Pyarelal, Madan Mohan, Rajesh Roshan, Anu Malik, and Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy and his favourite A R Rehman. He also contributed to several films as script, story and dialogue writer and eventually went on to direct films that won many awards and recognition.

Among them are Mere Apne, Koshish, Aandhi, Meera and Maachis. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2004 and also won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for Jai Ho along with AR Rahman for the film Slumdog Millionaire in 2009.This also got him the Grammy in 2010. Winner of five National Awards; 19 Filmfare Awards, an Oscar and a Grammy, you can catch the generally reserved Gulzar saab playing tennis early in the morning at Bandra Gymkhana in Bombay apart from doing what he loves best - writing .