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BOOK
REVIEW
A
soulful journey
Beyond Time. The Ageless
Music of Jagjit Singh by Asharani Mathur
(edited)
Reviewed by Sreeram Chaulia
 Millions
of music connoisseurs and Jagjit Singh fans have
been longing to learn more personally and
intimately about the man who revolutionized
Ghazal (romantic Urdu poetry) composition and
singing. What is the story of his rise? What are
the trials and tribulations he faced? What is
the secret of his longevity at the summit of the
Ghazal rendition genre for more than 25 years?
How do his peers rate him? What kind of musical
and human qualities have made him a household
name and such a revered figure all over the
Indian subcontinent?
This pictorial semi-autobiography comes like
deliverance to the endless litany of questions
and curiosity. It takes readers on a soulful
life journey of the ultimate exponent of melody.
Roots
Jagjit was born in 1941 to simple parents in
Sriganganagar, Rajasthan. Actually named
Jagmohan at birth, his devout Sikh father
rechristened him Jagjit on the advice of his
Namdhari guru. Jagjit's early years were spent
in Bikaner, where his father was posted as a
public works department employee. "We were
a lower middle class family, not at all well off
... buying kites was a luxury ... radios too
were a luxury ... we used to study by the light
of lanterns because there was no electricity in
the house ... we had no running water".
(pp.17-18)
The Sikh religion accords a very high place to
classical music. On returning to his birthplace
in 1948, Jagjit's father got him to train under
a blind teacher, Pandit Chhaganlal Sharma, and
later, under Ustad Jamal Khan of the Senia gharaana
(a school of traditional Hindustani music).
Still a child, Jagjit sang shabads
(devotional Sikh hymns) in Gurdwaras and
processions on birthdays of the Sikh gurus.
"From that time, I had a taste for lyrics
with the melancholy flavor of parting and
separation." Jagjit's first public
performance came in the ninth grade. "When
I sang there was great excitement! Some gave me
five rupees, some two, and called out their
encouragement." (p.19) There was no looking
back after that.
At college in Sriganganagar, he sang one night
in front of 4,000 people. Suddenly, the
electricity went off and the entire arena was
plunged into darkness. The sound system was
battery-operated and remained live. "I went
on singing, nobody moved, nothing stirred ...
such incidents and the response from audiences
convinced me that I should concentrate on
music." (p.22)
Jagjit listened intently to classical singers of
that time on radio - Talat Mehmood, Abdul Karim
Khan, Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Amir Khan et al.
Being fond of Urdu poetry, Jagjit developed a
preference for bol-pradaan music, where
emphasis is on words and expression rather than
the instruments.
Jagjit chose DAV College, Jalandhar, for higher
education since the principal of the institution
waived hostel and tuition fees for talented
musician students. Another reason was that
Jalandhar's All India Radio (AIR) station
carried programs in classical singing. AIR
graded him a "B" class artiste and
allowed him six live music segments a year for
small payments. In 1962, while in Jalandhar,
Jagjit composed a welcome song for the visiting
president of India, Rajendra Prasad.
Inter-university music competitions required his
college to send one nominee for classical and
one nominee for light music, and since an
established senior student already occupied the
classical music berth, Jagjit shifted to Geet
and Ghazal and won trophy after trophy,
"Slowly, I started acquiring fans who would
ask for specific song requests ... often a 100
rupee note would be lovingly pressed into my
hand." (p.27)
Struggles
In 1961, Jagjit went to Bombay to scout out
prospects for a career in film playback singing.
Music director Jaikishen liked his voice but
could not offer any big break. Money ran out and
a dispirited Jagjit did not have enough to even
retrieve his clothes from the laundry or buy a
ticket home. "I traveled by train from
Bombay to Jalandhar minus a ticket, hiding in
the bathroom." (p.28)
In March 1965, Jagjit decided to have another go
at the celluloid singing in Bombay. He lived in
a run-down hostel, sleeping on an iron cot
surrounded by bedbugs and getting his foot
chewed off by rats at night. He was financially
in a precarious situation. "Sometimes there
was money and sometimes there wasn't." But
such was the purity and attraction of Jagjit's
voice that he managed to get two Ghazals
recorded for an EP (Extended Play, a 1960s
gramophone record format) with HMV. When the
time came to take a picture for the cover of the
album, Jagjit decided to cut his long Sikh
turban and hair, reasoning, "It was a
matter of identity ... whatever picture was
taken, that was how I would have to remain for
the rest of my career." (p.42)
Life in Bombay was hard and Jagjit eked out a
living doing small mehfils (musical
gatherings) and house concerts. He sang at
numerous film parties in the hope that a music
director might notice him and give him a chance.
But filmdom was run in cliques and newcomers
were rarely accepted in a highly competitive
environment. Besides, as his brother Kartar
Singh recalled, "The musicality of his
voice, its depth, its pain, how would it suit a
hero who runs around trees?" (p.46) His
strong composition skills and conjurer-like
control over words, ragas and tunes would have
simply been lost had he remained stuck in film
playbacks.
Jagjit increasingly veered toward the Ghazal.
Bollywood's loss was the Ghazal's gain, for
those were the times when Ghazal music was
turning into a forgotten and dying art. The Urdu
language itself was in decline in India. Jagjit
made the Ghazal his beloved and changed its
destiny. Jagjit Singh was successful because he
developed his own style and didn't try to be
like film singers. He was different from them,
several notches above.
Bonds
In an era when the Ghazal had yet to emerge out
of the confines of aristocratic seances to
become marketable, Jagjit composed music for
radio jingles, ad films, documentaries, etc to
earn an income. It was at one such jingle
recording that he met Chitra, who was at the
tether end of a bad marriage. Her daughter,
Monica, remembered hearing Jagjit sing the
Punjabi folk song, "Maye-ni-Maye" at a
neighbors's home: "As a little kid, I was
so moved by that song, I just sat down and wept
... it was the purity and intensity of his voice
that touched me." (p.53)
Jagjit's album recordings were excruciatingly
slow in the late 1960s. Between 1965 and 1973,
he had three solo EPs, two duet EPs with Chitra,
and one "SuperSeven" (a 20-minute
format that has disappeared). Most earnings came
from live performances at parties and weddings.
On one occasion, he was invited to Hong Kong to
sing at a marriage and the Hilton Hotel
"asked me to perform for half-an-hour each
day in return for a room and food - no
money." (p.69) In 1969, Jagjit and Chitra
also went to East Africa along with an orchestra
troupe of light music singers. In 1970,
"for the grand sum of 30 rupees", the
two got married. "No drama, no reception,
no presents. Just two minutes and we were man
and wife."
Vivek, alias Baboo, was born in 1971. When Baboo
was brought home from the hospital, "we had
very little money, our apartment had just one
room ... but there was joy, such joy." To
tide over financial hardships, Chitra used to
literally hold the sleeping 20-day-old baby in
her arms while singing jingles into the mike.
Despite the straitened conditions, Jagjit fondly
recalls those times: "I felt as if I was
the richest man in the world." (p.73)
Ascent
In 1975, HMV asked Jagjit to compose his first
ever LP (Long-Play) album, a signal that he had
finally arrived on the scene. "The
Unforgettables" featured Jagjit-Chitra
Ghazals that sounded totally different from
orthodox Ghazals. Modern instruments rubbed
shoulders with traditional sarangi and tabla.
Jagjit's trademark belief that Ghazal must not
be imprisoned in one rigid style raised critics'
eyebrows, but as the album grew into a hit
beyond expectations, the self-same critics
hailed Jagjit for this foresight and innovation.
"Unforgettables" brought Jagjit and
Chitra Singh to national attention and helped
finance the purchase of their modest flat in
Bombay.
The next album Jagjit recorded was the Punjabi
"Birha Da Sultan", poems of Shiv Kumar
Batalvi. Jagjit's interpretation and mellifluous
rendering of Batalvi's sad verses haunted
listeners for decades. A quarter of a century
after the album was released, hit numbers like
"Shikra" (where the beloved is
compared to the falcon who won't eat what is
offered and "so, I fed it the flesh of my
heart") are requested at Jagjit's live
concerts. After "Birha Da Sultan",
Jagjit and Chitra composed and sang the
first-ever double album, "Come Alive",
sparking a Ghazal hunger that was unprecedented
in South Asia. "Live at Wembley" and
"Live at Royal Albert Hall", two more
double albums recorded in concert, came out
after Jagjit toured England in 1979 and 1982. On
the latter trip, two performances in London were
scheduled for two consecutive nights in venues
with seating capacity of 6,000. Tickets sold out
in three hours.
In 1980, Jagjit agreed to sing Javed Akhtar's
poetry for a low-budget film, "Saath Saath",
without bothering for financial rewards. Raman
Kumar, the director, could not spend much at the
recording studio, but Jagjit footed the bills. A
similar movie venture, "Arth", in the
same year saw Jagjit and Chitra Singh's
popularity climb higher and higher. Even now,
"Arth" and "Saath Saath" are
one of HMV's highest selling combination
cassettes ever.
In 1987, Jagjit crossed another milestone by
recording the first purely digital CD album by
an Indian musician, "Beyond Time". It
was a memorable moment not just for Chitra and
him, but for Ghazals as a whole. The year after,
Jagjit sealed his name in history by composing
the music for Gulzar's epic TV serial, "Mirza
Ghalib". Jagjit's soft and serenading voice
paid befitting tribute to the greatest 19th
century poet of undivided India.
Despair
In 1990, against the run of professional
success, Jagjit and Chitra lost their
18-year-old only son, Vivek, in a motor
accident. It was a moment of pure desperation
and the biggest tragedy in their lives. Chitra
lost her voice and never returned to the stage
or to the recording studio. Jagjit groped in
darkness and depression for a while, but such
were his steely character and dedication to
music that he decided "not to let what has
happened become a weakness to crush me, instead
I should turn it into a strength". (p.109).
He began picking up the scrambled pieces by
playing the tanpura as a form of
meditation. "After Baboo's death, my focus
sharpened and I concentrated entirely on singing
and composing." (p.114)
The first album after his son's demise,
"Man Jite Jagjit", contained Sikh
devotional Gurbani, where "you'll hear the
pain ... my mood of acceptance [of fate]".
Work did not stop even after the devastating
loss, though fans could no longer hear Jagjit's
famous duets with Chitra. "Someone
Somewhere", "Hope", "Kahkashan",
"Visions", "Face to Face",
"Silsilay", "Marasim",
"Forget me Not" and so on reached a
global audience. "Sajda" (1991) with
the nightingale of India, Lata Mangeshkar,
smashed non-film album records of all time. The
caravan has not stopped to this day. The very
day his mother died in 2001, after the cremation
in the morning, Jagjit went to Calcutta in the
afternoon for a scheduled concert.
After Vivek's death, Jagjit began showing more
of his spiritual and philosophical side,
mellowing his already sobering voice, singing
complicated metaphysical verses and also
venturing into classical bhajans (Hindu
devotional songs). When poet and associate, Nida
Fazli, sees the sonless father figure Jagjit
with legions of his youthful fans, "it
seems as if he has hundreds and thousands of
children who shower love on him". (p.119)
Tributes
Over the years, Jagjit has promoted young Ghazal
singers by lending his name or his music to
budding talents. "Nobody helped me like
this when I had just arrived in Bombay ... if
you help others, it doesn't demean you."
(p.123) Jagjit believes he has imbibed his
father's generosity and large-heartedness.
"These are samskaras [good deeds]
which I saw from childhood and learned from
them." His acts of kindness, which are
showered on accompanying artistes, friends in
need and associates, also extend to people he
does not know. "He gives you everything
before you have to ask for it" said Kuldip
Desai, Jagjit's personal assistant. In the
1990s, Jagjit has done albums whose vast
royalties have gone to charitable organizations
like Child Relief and You, the Aurobindo Ashram
and the National Association of the Blind.
"One does these things hoping for relief or
peace or to see someone happy." (p.154)
Jagjit came at a time when the stricken Ghazal
was about to kick the bucket, but his arrival
breathed oxygen into it. For this service, says
poet Sudarshan Faakir, Ghazal lovers are forever
indebted to him. "He developed a new
industry, the Ghazal industry," with its
ancillary artistes, sound engineers, studios and
poets. Urdu poets owe him a special place in
their hearts, for it was Jagjit who made it a
practice to pay lyricists a part of his
earnings. His latest commitment is to popularize
Hindi all over multi-lingual India as a
connecting language that the whole country
should share.
The first step was an album with the Hindi
poetry of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee,
"Samvedna" last year. Such is Jagjit's
market value and phenomenal presence that like
Urdu was resuscitated after "Mirza Ghalib",
the more Hindi Geet albums he releases, it will
be the turn of shrinking Hindi litterateurs to
thank him as their savior too. In recognition of
his yeoman contributions to music and
literature, Jagjit was awarded the Padma Bhushan
title by the government of India last month.
Today, Jagjit the perfectionist motivates
himself to ever-newer musical achievement. For
someone who has attained Himalayan heights,
"every morning is a new beginning, every
album is a new album, every concert is a new
test ... to live in your past is a dangerous
thing ... whatever you've done, you can do
something better, let's try for that".
(p.160)
Jagjit Singh aficionados will concur when I
conclude with one of his own immortal couplets
as a request to the great singer:
Uthke mehfil se mat
chale jaana,
tum se roshan ye kona kona hain
(Do not ever get up and leave
this heart;
it is you who light every corner of it)
Beyond Time. The Ageless Music of Jagjit
Singh by Asharani Mathur (edited). Habitat
Arts Pvt Ltd, New Delhi. December 2002. ISBN:
81-901563-0-6. Price US$57.50, 164 pages.
(©2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights
reserved. Please contact [email protected]
for information on our sales and syndication
policies.)
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