Kausar Munir: Poetry is self-expression, songwriting is personalized work

Bombay–The famous poet and lyricist Kausar Munir thinks that becoming a lyricist is quite a personalized job that requires different skills, whereas poetry is largely the self-expression of the poet.

She said the younger generation are very interested in ‘Shayari’ and poetry but need more doors.

Kausar is known to have written some of the beautiful Bollywood songs like “Maana Ke Hum Yaar Nahin”, “Suno Na Sangemarmar”, “Falak Tak”, among others.

While the poet-lyricist is part of the ‘India Shayari Project’, a poetry show, asked about the difference between writing poetry and writing the lyrics to a Bollywood song, Kausar told IANS: “Poetry is very different in that sense from writing lyrics to a song as poetry follows certain rules and parameters. Poetry is basically something that I think stems from your own experiences, stories, thoughts and expressions. It is purely the expression of the poet, that is poetry.

“While filmmaking or songwriting is a very specialized and personalized job. You write a script for a character / actor by a brief given by the director, keeping in mind the constraints of the business, which is the music label and the producer. So of course, although the thoughts are yours, but what the thoughts are to reach has been said by someone else.

“So it’s a very specialized job and people don’t understand that not every poet can be a lyricist and that every lyricist doesn’t have to be a poet in its purest form. But yes, poetry is very different, the requirement of a lyricist is very different from the requirement of a poet. It’s a completely different skill, ”she said.

It is quite interesting to observe how poetry and music share a relationship within; but over the past couple of years, the quality of the song lyrics isn’t quite as memorable as it used to be.

When asked if somewhere in the mainstream entertainment space poetry is going to disappear, Kausar stressed that it stays relevant with the times and moves with the mood.

She explained, “No it’s not. With each changing era, the requirement changes. In an age where emojis have their own language, if I say “Chaudavi Ka Chand Ya Aftab Ho” it won’t do unless it’s period drama. Everything changes depending on the mood of the moment.

“For example, the 90s saw Nadeem-Shravan bring a whole new sound. Even in the new millennium we have wonderful poets and writers who bought in new ways. Javed Sahab and Gulzar Sahab remain the deans of this space. ‘Rockstar’ (Bollywood film starring Ranbir Kapoor) can be considered one of the best albums of all time in terms of lyrics. Irshad Kamil’s depth of thought, vocabulary and language are wonderful. Amitabh Bhattacharya i thinks it’s the new age Anand Bakshi and Anand Bakshi is a giant. We have to do according to the mood of the moment, “she added.

While the India Shayari Project (ISP) was launched on ZEE5 with Kumar Vishwas, Zakir Khan and Kausar, she said that such an initiative would open many doors for young poets to flourish.

“I believe that the younger generation are extremely interested in ‘Shayari’ and poetry, but maybe they need more portals and doors to open so that they can familiarize themselves with and maybe better. understand it. I think Zee Live’s India Shayari project on ZEE5 is great because the show’s first sampling was aimed at different sensibilities and demographics so you can understand what the scope and scale of poetry can be. In fact, this is all serving to popularize something that has a demand anyway, but we have to point it in the right direction, ”Kausar concluded. (IANS)