Jagjit Singh, that baritone which time cannot silence: Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Javed Akhtar, Naseeruddin Shah speak

It’s a miracle how Jagjit Singh managed to keep the Ghazal alive for more than thirty years by making it accessible to a younger audience. To Jagjit Singh goes the credit for pulling the Ghazal out of private mehfils and elitist concerts and making the high-maintenance genre accessible to the masses. Filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali says he owes Jagjit Singh a big debt. “If it wasn’t for Jagjit Saab I wouldn’t have composed my Ghazal album Sukoon. To make the Ghazal comprehensible to an audience that may not be aware of the great Urdu poetry and intricate singing of Begum Akhtar and Mehdi Hassan is what I learnt from Jagjit Saab. The end result is my album Sukoon.” Jagjit Singh was not just the voice of the Ghazal, he was the voice of the alpha male. For thirty years, he kept the Ghazal alive and popular through his rich baritone. And this, in the face of the stiffest composition, possible from film music. In our country, the only music that sells is film music. And yet Jagjit’s albums and songs sold outside the purview of cinema. Javed Akhtar did one of his earliest film lyrics with Jagjit in Saath Saath. The songs in that film remain popular to this day. Says Javed Akhtar, “Do you know, HMV’s combination of Jagjit’s two film soundtracks, Saath Saath and Arth, is their largest-selling film- Ghazal combination of all times. As you know, Saath Saath had lyrics by me and Arth by my father-in-law Kaifi Azmi. The common link was Jagjit’s voice.” Not too many people knew that Jagjit was heavily into charitable causes. He used to support finance and endorse any number of charities for children, the ailing, the old and the poor. But he was particular about his charitable work not being publicised. With Jagjit Singh’s departure, the link between the traditional ghazal and the popular idiom is lost. Any art form is carried further by the middle class. Urdu and other languages are losing out to English. With Urdu not being a popular language for learning and education, ghazals are bound to suffer. It’s a miracle how Jagjit Singh managed to keep the ghazal alive to this day. Jagjit Singh’s career piece de resistance was Gulzar’s Ghalib where Naseeruddin Shah got to sing Ghalib. Says Naseer, “The songs in Mirza Ghalib were more like poetry recitation. Jagjit Bhai’s singing helped me to grope my way through the performance.”

Actors who had to lip-sync Jagjit Singh’s songs on screen had a tough time doing so. In Saath Saath when the late Farooq Shaikh was asked to give a lip on screen to Jagjit’s Tumko dekha toh yeh khayaal aaya and Pyar mujhse jo tumne kiya toh kya paogi the actor had wondered how so many emotions can be crammed into one singer’s voice. Yes, Jagjit Singh could really sing, and without the help of auto-correct. Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based journalist. He has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. Read all the  Latest News,  Trending News,  Cricket News,  Bollywood News,  India News and  Entertainment News here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and Instagram