In a world on fire, Jagjit Singh helped me make sense of the chaos
In the small town of Jabalpur, my mother raised me on a healthy diet of middle-class values, the Marathi language, and Jagjit Singh.
The singer and music composer known for his ghazals was one of the earliest male role models I had — the other being my grandfather, an honest, hardworking man who loved to meet and help people.
The downside of being exposed to Jagjit Singh's ghazals from an early age, though, was that I stuck out like a sore thumb. Not many 12- and 13-year-olds listened to him. My references fell flat in the company of others my age. During impromptu antakshari sessions, I realised they hadn't heard or weren't remotely interested in the songs I knew.
It was like singing 'Tere Liye' from Veer Zara when the one from Vivek Oberoi-starrer Prince was all the rage.
As I journeyed through my 20s, a quiet transformation began to unfold. I moved out of my hometown for the first time, and met people from different parts of the country. Reciting a sher from a Jagjit Singh ghazal under the moonlit sky or humming to the tunes among friends became a way to connect. Many of my new friends confided that growing up, it was always their parents — and never them — who listened to this brand of music. But now, something had shifted. It did not feel alien to them. It was as though Jagjit Singh, with these verses on heartbreak, yearning and loss, was lending his voice to their thoughts.
His musical genius gently allowed the words to take over only when required, leaving space for the melody to wash over you once the singer's voice faded. His calm, yet emotional baritone, trained as he was in Hindustani Classical music, always played its part earnestly, never overshadowing the song at hand. It was only when you tried singing one of his ghazals that you realised the elegant and elaborate harkaten (vocal movements) inherent to the piece, which Jagjit ji would perform with no fuss.
But beyond this cultural reappraisal, which was part of a larger romanticisation of everything that Gen Z and Millennials now consider vintage, I rediscovered Jagjit Singh in my 20s on a deeply personal level.
For one, his extensive body of work meant I continued to unearth songs I hadn't heard before. And two, as I encountered life-altering moments, both personal and political — the falling standards for what passed as news, the Delhi riots, the Covid-19 pandemic, my first romantic relationship and my first break-up — I began to find greater meaning in his songs.
As the public sphere and the family WhatsApp groups became more savage and bloodthirsty, demanding a pound of flesh from 'the other', Jagjit Singh's voice felt like a balm. As he sang 'Main na Hindu, na Musalman, mujhe jeene do (I am neither Hindu nor Muslim, let me live)', it reminded me of the enduring value of human decency, compassion, and kindness. 'Sab ke dukh dard ko bas apna samajh kar jeena, bas yahi hai mera armaan, mujhe jeene do, (Treat the sorrow of others as your own, that's my hope, let me live)', he pleaded.
Like many in their 20s, I had other worries too — something more mundane and crushing: money and whether I was making enough. So, when he sang 'Itni mehengai ke bazaar se kuch laata hoon, apne bacchon me use baant ke sharmata hoon (I manage to bring little home from the overpriced market, and feel embarrassed as I divide it among my children)', I felt he captured the inadequacy I felt when I compared my salary to others.
And he wasn't beholden to the purists, using a guitar, no less, in a ghazal. Despite the backlash he had to face, he came out of it, having liberated ghazal as an art form.
While a cultural revival has made Jagjit Singh 'cool', the characterisation of his work as a library of 'sad songs' or 'breakup-core' ghazals is a lazy and reductive assessment.
Make no mistake. He sang some of the most heartwrenching songs. I feel something stir deep inside me when he asks, 'Koi ye kaise bataye, ke woh tanha kyun hai… yahi hota hai to aakhir yahi hota kyun hai, (How does one tell, why they are alone… if this is the way things happen, why do they)'. But there's more to him than that. I hope everyone opening up their hearts to Jagjit Singh for the first time gets to experience him in all his multitudes.
Of course, listen to 'Tere khushboo main base khat main jalata kaise' (How could I burn the letters that smelled of you) and 'Chitthi na koi sandes… kahan tum chale gaye' (Without a letter or a message…where have you left for) — they will help you put into words many of life's tragedies. But don't miss out on 'Suna tha ke woh aayenge anjuman mein' (I had heard they would come to the gathering) and 'Ye tera ghar ye mera ghar' (This is your house and mine), two lovely songs in the voice of Jagjit and his wife Chitra Singh, which speak of reciprocated love. When faced with injustice, these two tracks, 'Jo bhi bhala bura hai, Allah jaanta hai' (God knows all that is right and wrong) and 'Badi haseen raat thi' (The night was beautiful), will help you reason, or come to terms with the lack of one. If you seek a religious prayer to calm your racing heart, there's 'Mere mann ke andh tamas mein, jyotirmay utaro' (Appear as radiance to rid my heart of darkness).
And when you find a song that speaks to you, share it with others. Jagjit Singh's voice always sounds sweeter, drifting in from a neighbour's open window or an Instagram story marked Close Friends. Before you know it, you will find yourself humming along: 'Hothon se chulo tum, mera geet amar kardo (Lend your lips to my song, make it immortal)'.
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