"When my father passed away in Delhi, I was working with Bimalda as an assistant in Bombay. My family did not inform me about it. My elder brother who lived in Bombay, and who knew what had happened, took a flight out the same day," the veteran poet recalls in a chapter in a new book "Housefull: The Golden Years of Bollywood" by journalist-critic Ziya Us Salam.
"I was informed by one of our neighbours in Delhi a few days later. Immediately, I rushed home by train. In those days, Frontier Mail, the fastest train to Delhi, took 24 hours to cover the distance. By the time I reached home, everything was over," he added.
Gulzar was a struggling poet at that time and returned to Mumbai with a "vacuum in my heart. I never cremated my father, so he lived on, as dead. It weighed on my body".
Five long years went by, and Roy was on his last journey. "Every night I used to cry as cancer consumed Bimalda, bit by bit. All along, I was there beside him, reading his favourite script
