Sampooran Singh Kalra (born 18 August 1934), known professionally as Gulzar, is an Indian lyricist, poet, author, screenwriter, and film director. He started his career with music director S.D. Burman as a lyricist in the 1963 film Bandini and worked with many music directors including R. D. Burman, Salil Chowdhury, Vishal Bhardwaj and A. R. Rahman. He was awarded Padma Bhushan in 2004, the third-highest civilian award in India,the Sahitya Akademi Award and the Dadasaheb Phalke Award — the highest award in Indian cinema. He has won several Indian National Film Awards, 21 Filmfare Awards, one Academy Award and one Grammy Award.

Gulzar also writes poetry, dialogues and scripts. He directed films such as Aandhi and Mausam during the 1970s and the TV series Mirza Ghalib in the 1980s. He also directed Kirdaar in 1993.

Lyricist
It was during his interactions in the PWA Sunday meetings that Shailendra and Bimal Roy encouraged him to join films. Gulzar began his career under film directors Bimal Roy and Hrishikesh Mukherjee. His book Ravi Paar has a narrative of Bimal Roy and the agony of creation. He started his career as a songwriter with the music director Sachin Dev Burman for the movie Bandini (1963). In films, he found an environment associated with literature in the group he worked with, including Bimal Roy, most of whose films were based on literary works. Shailendra, who has penned the rest of the songs in the movie requested Gulzar to write the song "Mora Gora Ang Layle", sung by Lata Mangeshkar.

Poetry
Gulzar primarily writes in Urdu and Punjabi; besides several dialects of Hindi such as Braj Bhasha, Khariboli, Haryanvi and Marwari. His poetry is in the Triveni type of stanza. His poems are published in three compilations; Chand Pukhraaj Ka, Raat Pashminey Ki and Pandrah Paanch Pachattar. His short stories are published in Raavi-paar (also known as Dustkhat in Pakistan) and Dhuan (smoke).

For the peace campaign Aman ki Asha, jointly started by India's and Pakistan's leading media houses, Gulzar wrote the anthem "Nazar Main Rehte Ho", which was recorded by Shankar Mahadevan and Rahat Fateh Ali Khan. Gulzar has written ghazals for Ghazal Maestro Jagjit Singh's albums "Marasim" (1999) and "Koi Baat Chale" (2006).