By Subhash K. Jha, IANS

After composing two back-to-back seductive chartbusters, "Kajra re" and "Bidee", the child in Gulzar's heart seems to be asserting itself more strongly and innocence and joy will be the predominant emotions in his poetry in the coming year.

"I'm doing an entire album of limericks for children with Vinay Sapru and Radhika (the duo who made Salman Khan starrer "Lucky")," Gulzar told IANS.

"The very fact that they understood what I meant by children's limerick made me very happy."

Commenting upon his two hit item numbers, he said: "I guess 'Kajra re' and 'Beedi' just happened. They were the demands of the hour. But a lot of the credit for 'Kajra re' must go to Aishwarya Rai.

"And, now, the credit for putting forward my 'Barso re' song in 'Guru' must again to Aishwarya. She's able to communicate such innocence and joy in the rain."

Gulzar has earlier done an entire album of music for children with composer-director Vishal Bharadwaj.

"The number 'Chaddi pehen ke phool khila hai' became very popular. That's the kind of limerick for children which I'll be doing in my new album for T-Series."

The poet-filmmaker intends to go easy in 2007.

"I had a surfeit of lyrics to write in 2005 and 2006. I need to slow down. I'm concentrating on my daughter Meghna's film, which was earlier titled 'Baat Pakki'. Now it's 'Just Married'.

"Besides that, my only other movie assignment in 2007 is Mani Ratnam's 'Lajjo', which takes me to one of my favourite eras - India just before partition."

While Ratnam is writing the screenplay, Gulzar will be working on designing the scenario with him, and, of course, the lyrics.

"And, hopefully, I'll finally direct a film in the coming year," he said.