Gulzar Dehlvi

Gulzar Dehlvi (1926–2020), born Anand Mohan Zutshi, was one of the last voices of Old Delhi's composite Ganga-Jamuni culture — a Kashmiri Pandit who carried the Gita and the Quran in one heart, and wrote Urdu ghazals in a white sherwani with a rose on his chest. Born on 7 July 1926 in Gali Kashmeerian, Old Delhi, to two poets — his father Tribhuvan Nath 'Zar' and his mother Brij Rani 'Be-Zaar' — he was given his pen name 'Gulzar', a bed of roses, by his ustad Bekhud Dehlvi. He took an M.A. from Hindu College, Delhi, and became editor-in-chief of Science Ki Duniya in 1975, Urdu's first science magazine. Jawaharlal Nehru recited his poem 'Zarurat Hai Un Naujawano Ki' from the Red Fort on 15 August 1947. Honoured by the Vice-President of India on his 91st birthday for his lifelong service to Urdu, he died at his Noida home on 12 June 2020, days after recovering from COVID-19, aged 93.