Poet Tanveer Ghazi seems to be over the moon these days. The highly coveted shayar can’t seem to get over the appreciative phone call he received from Amitabh Bachchan himself for his work in Pink. “It’s like a dream come true. I still pinch myself sometimes,” says Ghazi jubilantly.
Tanveer has been a writer all along, mostly famous for his verses, poems and what not. So much so that the Maharashtra Government has awarded him with the famous Sahir Ludhianvi award for his contribution to shaayri. Being a person who refused to go through the grind to get big projects Tanveer took his time to make a mark in the industry. “I am not a person who would want to go through the typical Bollywood struggle to get work. I write because I enjoy writing and I am thankful to Allah – The Amighty that whatever I have written till now has been appreciated by people,” avers Tanveer who has 2 books Ehsaas & Samundar, a collection of his poems in Hindi & Urdu respectively, to his name. “I was recognised in the space I belonged and that’s what matters most. But I did do some work in Bollywood like the critically acclaimed film Manthan. I started off with writing just 1 song in that film and Ravindar Jain ji was doing the music of that movie around that time but slowly song after song I took over the writing work because the director liked my work so much.”
“I faded into my homeland again but then I kept being called back for more & more work. My last film before Pink happened was Hate Story 2,” he adds.
So how did Pink happen? “Shantanu Moitra Sir was looking for a writer and since I had worked with singer Harshdeep Kaur for her album, she recommended my name. The 1st time he called he gave me 10 minutes for dummy lyrics. It was too little a time but I had to gave my best shot, in my record time, I wrote the final lyrics. Surprisingly, the work I sent was liked so much that it immediately got finalised and that’s how the song “Kaari Kaari” happened in Pink,” and while talking about his experience of having worked with Shantanu Moitra he starts gushing about his Amitabh Bachchan experience, “I was called once again for a verse that Amitabh Sir had to recite during the climax of the film. It was a herculean task to come up with something for him and I gave it all to it. My verse was liked by Amitabh so much that he personally called me up to applaud me for it and that was the best day of my life.”
Little do many know that apart from Tanveer Ghazi there are only 4 other lyrics or poets or writers who’s works Amitabh Bachchan has recited in films 1st one being Sahir Ludhianvi’s works in Kabhie Kabhie, then it was Javed Akhtar’s verses in Silsila, his own father Harivansh Rai Bachchan’s works in Agnipath, Gulzar’s verses in Aks and eventually came Pink.
Well Big B’s words have surely encouraged Ghazi to venture full fledgedly into film industry. In the times of meaningless songs, Ghazi will truly be a breath of fresh air!
