Vishal Bhardwaj to come out with book of his poems

He is one of the most original storytellers and musicians in the film industry and now Vishal Bhardwaj is branching out by bringing his own book of poems.

The filmmaker's songs almost always written by lyricist Gulzar are known to be lyrically rich and he himself is known to be a closet poet.

However, Bhardwaj says he never wrote the lyrics for his compositions not because of any "apprehension" but because he considers poetry and lyric writing two different art forms.

In an interview with PTI, Bhardwaj says, "I take poetry as a different art form. I keep my poetry very pure."
 

"In fact, on December 17, HarperCollins (publishing house) is bringing out my book of poetry. I am very excited for that. I've been working on it for a long time."

The "Haider" filmmaker originally wanted to be a music composer and made his debut as a music director with the children's film "Abhay (The Fearless)" in 1995.

He then received wider recognition with his compositions for Gulzar's "Maachis" and Ram Gopal Varma's "Satya".

Bhardwaj says his initial years as a music composer in Bollywoo were not that great.

"They were not very bright days because barring a few films in the late 90s, when I came, the standard of storytelling was really poor. There were not many innovative storytellers, except for people like Gulzar saab and Ram Gopal Varma."

He says the films in the '90s had fixed song situations.

"That was the reason I started feeling bored with my own work. Hence, I became a director."

The 52-year-old filmmaker is currently excited about the new season of 'Royal Stag Barrel Select MTV Unplugged'.

The platform on the show, according to Bhardwaj, is liberating as it gives one enough space to play around with his own songs and create new stuff, unlike the early phase in his career.

"There was no space to create new kind of music. Film music is according to the film, what the story demands and those films were so regular. They were repeating themselves like a formulae. In that it's very difficult to create something new," he says.

The seventh season of the show will air from December 9 and features artistes such as Shankar Mahadevan, Rekha Bhardwaj and Farhan Akhtar.