The whiff of an early winter in the air coupled with ginger tea, all in a ghazal mehfil, would make for the perfect evening. At least till the late 90s, the ghazal culture was alive and kicking with scores of families making their way into Delhi’s Lodhi gardens or some open sprawling lawns for an evening of ghazals. In other cities, where open spaces were limited, audiences managed in auditoriums and enclosed areas.
It was the idea of coming with your loved one to attend an evening of ghazals and be transported to the world of Mirza Ghalib, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Majrooh Sultanpuri, Nida Fazli that kept people coming back for more.
But in India, over the years with Bollywood music encroaching upon other genres, we seem to have lost the penchant for ghazals, or rather, the patience to understand complex and meaningful poetry. Ghazal maestro Jagjit Singh, however, believes that we haven’t lost the love for ghazals as yet.
“One can’t completely dismiss the thought, since ghazal is a state of mind rather than a mere couplet which expresses a particular emotion. My shows are still sold out and people still want to hear more of it,” he explains. Singh also talks about how it is in the hands of media and Bollywood music composers to bring back ghazals into fashion. A few decades ago, noted lyricists like Majrooh Sultanpuri and Sahir Ludhianvi gave Hindi film songs some of its most memorable and melodic numbers. Most of them had an essence of beautiful poetry and reflections of the style of a ghazal, khayal or a thumri. “In today’s times, we have various other genres of music, which are extremely popular and are reaching out to the audience through Bollywood. The onus lies upon the music composers to incorporate other styles, simply because of their mass reach,” says Singh.
Shankar Mahadevan, popular music composer and singer, who recently launched his album of ghazals says that the style wasn’t lost anywhere. He gets slightly defensive when he cites the examples of
songs that his team has composed. “The most important aspect about ghazals is the way they are written and sung. From whatever little I know, it is a difficult form where one has to get the mood of the poetry right. I don’t think they are out of fashion. We try and retain some essence of different styles in the music we compose. It’s all about giving the audience a slice of that genre and then letting them take to it according their likes,” says Mahadevan.