A tribute to Jagjit Singh
A file photo of Ghazal maestro Jagjit Singh at a concert in Srinagar in December 2009 (PTI Photo).MUMBAI: Indian Ghazal King Jagjit Singh's way of celebrating his 70th year was unique - he was aiming to complete 70 concerts by the end of the year. The man who gave ghazals a new lease of life managed only 46 before breathing his last.
Singh, who learnt music under Pandit Chaganlal Sharma and then Ustad Jamaal Khan, rose to fame in the 1970s and 1980s with his lilting voice and refreshing style of rendering ghazals and devotional tracks. He was a Padma Bhushan awardee.
Born to a Sikh couple in Rajasthan February 8, 1941, Singh went on to pursue a post graduation in history from the Kurukshetra University in Haryana. He came to the country's entertainment capital, Mumbai in 1965, in search of work as a singer.
It was a struggle. Singing at small musical gatherings, house concerts and film parties in the hope of being noticed, became almost a daily routine for him. But he didn't lose hope.
In 1967, he met singer Chitra and following a courtship of two years, they tied the knot. Together they came up with several hit ghazal albums like ‘Ecstasies’, ‘A Sound Affair’, ‘Passions’ and ‘Beyond Time’ and were considered a formidable husband-wife singer duo.
They sang many successful duets until their only son, Vivek, died at the age of 21 in 1990. Chitra stopped singing. However, Singh continued his tryst with music - and for good.
In 1987, Singh recorded the first purely digital CD album by an Indian musician, ‘Beyond Time’.
He also sang for Bollywood films like ‘Arth’, ‘Saath Saath’ and ‘Premgeet’. He created a strong footing in films with songs like ‘Hontho se chhoo lo tum’ (‘Prem Geet’), ‘Tumko dekha toh yeh khayal aaya’ (‘Saath Saath’), ‘Jhuki jhuki si nazar’ (‘Arth’), ‘Hoshwalon ko’ (‘Sarfarosh’) and ‘Badi nazuk hai’ (‘Jogger's Park’).
Most of his non-film albums – ‘Hope’, ‘In Search’, ‘Insight’, ‘Mirage’, ‘Visions’, ‘Kahkashan’, ‘Love Is Blind’, ‘Chirag’, ‘Sajda’, ‘Marasim’, ‘Face To Face’, ‘Aaeena’ and ‘Cry For Cry’ - were successful too.
His concerts were a delight, especially when he broke into pleasant Punjabi numbers like ‘Saun da mahina’. His heavy voice used to turn joyful, leaving his listeners smiling ear to ear.
He had also collaborated with former Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in two albums, ‘Nayi Disha’ (1999) and ‘Samvedna’ (2002). In his later years, Singh became disinterested in Bollywood music due to the money-mindedness of film producers.
But he remained connected to causes relating to the music industry. He was one of the frontrunners battling to get an equal percentage of royalty for singers and lyricist from songs.
What he couldn't battle was his illness. After being hospitalised for brain haemorrhage on September 23, he died Monday morning. But the voice in tracks that won him the tag of Indian Ghazal King will remain fresh for generations to come.
Ghazal singer Jagjit Singh passes away
Ghazal king Jagjit Singh, the soul-stirring voice behind Hazaron khwaishe aisi, Ye kaghaz ki kashti and Jhuki jhuki si nazar, died this morning over a fortnight after he suffered brain haemorrhage.
The 70-year-old singer, who alongwith his wife Chitra almost rediscovered the ghazal genre for common Indian in 70s and 80s, was admitted to the Lilavati hospital on September 23 and was in coma since then.
“Jagjit Singh passed away at 8.10 am after having a terrible hemorrhage,” said Dr Sudhir Nandgaonkar, hospital spokesperson, here.
The day he was admitted, he was supposed to perform at a concert at Shanmukhananda Hall, Matunga, in Mumbai but the programme was cancelled after he was taken ill.
Despite a surgery, his condition did not improve and he remained on life support.
Singh, a Padma Bhushan recipient, was born in Sri Ganganagar, Rajasthan, on February 8, 1941.
After graduation, he shifted base to Mumbai, to explore career in the world of music. In the next decade and half, he earned nationwide fame as ghazal singer and music composer. He sang in several languages, including Hindi, Punjabi, Bengali, Gujarati, Nepali.
His personal life, though, was marked by a tragedy: His only son, Vivek, died in a car accident in 1990 when he was just 18.
Singers condole
The music world expressed grief on hearing the news of Jagjit Singh’s death. Fellow ghazal singer, Pankaj Udhas, described Jagjit as an “extremely versatile singer”. “I am devastated after hearing the tragic news,” Udhas said on phone from Pune.
Legendary singer Lata Mangeshkar said that Singh’s death was a big loss for the music industry. “I knew him well. I hoped he would come out of the coma. But the God willed otherwise.”
Stating that Jagjit brought ghazals into the mainstream, Lata said, “He worked very hard... sang from the heart. Listening to him, people got intoxicated.”
Asha Bhosale said hearing Jagjit’s ghazals brought peace to the mind. “Listening to him was a soothing experience. If one wanted to get away from everyday stress, the best way was to play a Jagjit Singh record.”
Asha described Sarakti Jaye Hai Rukh Se Nakab Ahista.. as her favourite Jagjit ghazal.
“I feel sad for his wife Chitra. She lost a son earlier, and now husband. She is very lonely now,” Asha said.
“Jagjit Singh’s death has caused an irreparable loss to the Hindi film and music industry,” said noted lyricist Javed Akhtar. He described Jagjit Singh as an extraordinary ghazal singer.
“I first heard him when I attended an event at IIT Kanpur named ‘Music Night by Jagjit and Chitra’ while in school. He was an icon. There is nothing I can say to console his wife (Chitra). All I can say is that he will never be forgotten. I pray to god to give her the strength to recover from the loss,” classical vocalist Shubha Mudgal said.
An emotional Usha Uttup recalled her time with Singh. “I can’t believe it. It was because of him that ordinary men could enjoy good Ghazal. We worked together in a jingle when I was just staring my career.
“He is the person who introduced the 12 string guitar and the bass guitar in ghazal singing, in a way no one could. I spoke to him recently. What a human being. It is a great loss.”
Prime Minister condoles
In his condolence message, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said by “making ghazals accessible to everyone, he gave joy and pleasure to millions of music lovers in India and abroad....he was blessed with a golden voice."
Jagjit Singh 1941-2011: Remarkable humility in how he approached his art and forthrightness in his beliefs set apart this singer who 'caressed' words.
A key figure in the re-emergence of the ghazal as a popular genre in the ‘seventies and ‘eighties of the last century, Jagjit Singh, who died in Mumbai on Monday, lent companionship and solace to a generation of middle class listeners who were looking beyond Bollywood for a musical remedy to the pressures of modern urban life.
The ghazal had been a staple of Hindi cinemas in the 1950s thanks to Talat Mehmood, Noor Jehan and others, but was edged out by the advent of western instrumentation and rhythms. Nor could it find a secure place in high culture: Hindustani classical music, which considers the khayal the pinnacle of vocal accomplishment, could embrace the thumri and even tappa as ‘light classical’ but not the ghazal. The use of difficult Urdu and sometimes Persian words was another barrier that a new generation of Indians schooled in Sanskritised Hindi found difficult to cross.
It was in this seemingly inhospitable cultural terrain that Jagjit Singh sought to carve out some space for himself. The irony, of course, was that the commercial success he and his wife, Chitra, met with their non-film albums helped revive the ghazal form in Hindi cinema too, with films like Arth, Saath-Saath and Prem Geet meeting a measure of success at the box-office as a result. Sarfarosh was a more recent hit where his voice struck a chord with viewers. Bollywood directors never stopped knocking on his door, often in the hope that his voice might rescue their otherwise forgettable ventures. And they were right. While movie goers remember ghazals like “Hothon se Chhoo lo tum” and “Badi nazuk hai ye manzil”, the stars on whom his vocals were picturised are not as easily remembered.
Urdu was not Jagjit’s mother tongue, and for a man whom the poet Gulzar praised for “caressing words”, he showed remarkable humility in seeking the right intonation whenever he was confronted with a fresh challenge. On such occasions, he would call up veteran lyricist-poet Nida Fazli and practice an unfamiliar or difficult Urdu expression over the phone. This mutual respect between Fazli and Jagjit meant that the former reserved some of his best lines for the latter. The popular ghazal “Hosh waalon ko khabar kya bekhudi kya cheez hai” from Sarfarosh was initially supposed to have been sung by Bhupendra, then Jaswinder. Ultimately, Fazli felt that only Jagjit could do justice to his words.
The writer could not be faulted for his choice. If he felt that only Jagjit could get the feeling of certain words right, Jagjit too, throughout his career, tried to keep the poetry he sang lucid and luminous. Though he sang the verses of almost everybody from Ghalib to Gulzar via Kaifi Azmi, Firaq Gorakhpuri, Qateel Shifai and the rest, Jagjit laid a lot of emphasis on simplicity of vocabulary. He was never in favour of profundity at the cost of clarity. “I ensure that first I understand the meaning of the ghazal and then expect the common man to appreciate it,” he once said.
Born in 1941 in Sriganganagar, Rajasthan, to Punjabi parents, he learnt music at the feet of Pandit Chhaganlal Sharma in the early years of his life, then under Ustad Jamaal Khan of the Sainia gharana. His grooming would eventually ensure that unlike other ghazal singers who attained popularity in the ‘80s only to fade away, Jagjit was not only able to ride a crest but guard against any trough.
Jagjit and Chitra also helped make the ghazal fashionable on stage, both in India and abroad, where the Pakistani diaspora, too, flocked to his concerts along with NRIs. Their personal life, however, was marked by a terrible tragedy when their only son, Vivek, who was 18 at the time, died in a car accident in 1990. Chitra would never give a public performance again, nor record with her husband other than a final album. From then on, Jagjit only sang by himself.
In his later years, he freely ranged away from ghazals to Krishna bhajans, Ram dhun, Shiv dhun, and shabads. Interestingly, many of his ghazal albums had English titles like ‘Ecstasies’, ‘Beyond Time’, ‘Hope’, etc. Never once did he think that the use of English would dilute the purity of his content. It was the same forthrightness in his belief that he displayed when he criticised the government for allowing Pakistani artistes to perform in India without any reciprocal response from Islamabad. Yet Jagjit proved that he could rise above political divisions by openly expressing his deep regard for Ghulam Ali, the legendary ghazal singer from across the border. For him the individual could not be equated with the State. Hours before the brain hemorrhage, which eventually took his life, he had expressed joy at getting a chance to perform with Ali. “Performing on the same stage with a legend like Ghulam Ali is an overwhelming feeling,” he had said. That performance was not to be, but in his little expression of joy at the prospect, Jagjit proved that modesty was not a rehearsed quote waiting for an occasion.
He is survived by his wife, Chitra Singh.
The Prime Minister said the ghazal maestro’s music legacy will continue to “enchant and entertain” the people.
