Javed Akhtar, Hindustan Times, Today, if I had to summarise my feelings and thoughts about Jagjit Singh, these two lines would be apt. In Urdu poetry, there is a term called ‘chain’ (peace). In a sentence, we’d put it as, “Uski aawaaz mein chain hai”. That’s what Jagjit’s friends, followers and fans felt whenever they heard his voice, and that list includes me as well. Somehow, even if someone didn’t understand a word of what he was singing, they would just believe that something beautiful was being conveyed in a song. That is the magic his voice created, and that is the magic that Urdu poetry and ghazals have lost today. I last spoke to him on September 22, a day before he
had his brain haemorrhage. He spoke to me about a concert tour of sorts in the US next year. I told him we would meet in a couple of days and finalise the details. I didn’t know those two days would never pass and I’d never speak to Jagjit again. It just shows he had no idea that he was unwell… I’d like to believe he wasn’t unwell. I visited a little after the surgery; the doctors had declared he was in a coma. Over the next few days, as I enquired about his health, I realised the choice was going to be pretty bad. If he survived, he would be in a vegetative state as long as he’d live, bed-ridden forever. The other option was that he may not make it. As I put pen to paper, my mind is flooded with hundreds of memories of Jagjit, some that put a smile on my face and some that leave
me teary-eyed.In chronological order, I remember the first time I ever heard him was on an LP which Amitabh (Bachchan) played while we were sitting in the garden of his residence. The song was from Jagjit and Chitra’s first album. And the first song on the LP was ‘Baat niklegi to door talak jayegi’. I’d say, “baat nikli aur wakai door talak gayi”. It’s commendable how he maintained his position from day one as one of the finest voices India has produced, without getting too deeply involved with Bollywood music. When I met him, in person, for the
first time during the music sittings for Saath Saath, I realised he carried his success on his shoulders very lightly. We together worked on some beautiful numbers for the movie, including ‘Tumko dekha to yeh khayal aaya…’ and ‘Yeh tera ghar yeh mera ghar…’ We struck a chord that despite his demise, I believe, is still unbroken. We worked on several albums and songs hereafter, including Silsilay and Soz. But his best-selling album to this day is the one where he sang Mirza Ghalib’s ghazals, in a language not many would be able to comprehend today.
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