Tum itna jo muskura rahe ho...Jagjit Singh lives on in a smile

If you are an Indian, your music, specially your film music, is an inseparable part of your life, isn't it?
And so are the singers. And when one of these singers dies, it's as if someone in your own life has gone away. It's a voice that's been a part of your life, your growing up, your memories...

Jagjit Singh's voice was one that you came running from the kitchen, if you happened to hear it playing on TV, which was often. At least "Hosh walon ko khabar kya...." from the film Sarfarosh is a big thing on TV. He died this morning; may his soul rest in peace. May his music stir many more hearts and create in people who don't really appreciate ghazals a love for that genre of music.

For me, somehow, the songs that come instantly to my lips when I think Jagjit Singh are those from the films "Saath Saath" and "Arth". Incidentally, I discovered only today, that both were made in 1982. I don't know when exactly i got hooked to those songs, or why i bought the tape first, and then the CD...but somehow i listened to it a lot after i got married. Maybe because both movies have dealt intricately with relationships and it was a kind of Hindi cinema where the lyrics were actually meaningful, reflected the theme of the movie, made sense when heard individually too. I just can't put my finger on it. Maybe it was the perfect marriage of great lyricists like Kaifi Azmi and Javed Akhtar's words with the soulful voice of Jagjit Singh.

Even today, when I'm low, I reach out to this music. I cry sometimes listening to "Jhuki jhuki si nazar" and "Tum itna jo muskura rahe ho...".

Then there's the most hauntingly painfully truthful song from Arth:
"Koi ye kaise bataaye ke wo tanahaa kyon hai
wo jo apanaa thaa, wohee aur kisi kaa kyon hai
yahee duniyaan hain to fir, aisee ye duniyaan kyon hai?
yahee hotaa hain to, aakhir yahee hotaa kyon hai?"

There's a painful deliciousness to the lyrics...you sort of savour the pain in the words and when Jagjit Singh sang it, he added his own beautiful pain to it -- though, with the soothing balm of his timbre that was his trademark.

Pandit Bhimsen Joshi and my memories of Sunday pooja

May his soul rest in peace. Pandit Bhimsen Joshi died this morning. And I couldn't get over the fact that the day of his death coincided with the Tyagaraja Aradhana. What musical bliss he will find in the other world...

Much is being said on TV channels today since morning (and much of it is sheer nonsense. I hate it when news anchors ask other senior musicians "What is your reaction to Panditji's death?" I mean can't they ask anything else for Christ's sake?!)

Anyway, I'm digressing.

My association with Panditji is a personal one with his music. Hi rendition of "Bhagyada Lakshmi Baaramma" is one of my favourite versions of the song ( i know about three). There was something about the way he almost flung the invitation at Goddess Lakshmi -- it was aggressive, it was plaintive in parts and beseeching. I loved the way he would dwell on the refrain "Vithalana Raani..."

After we got married, my husband, for almost four years has done his Sunday afternoon elaborate pooja to the tune of his Marathi abhangs. We both loved them. We had the privilege of living then in an independent outhouse with empty sites for neighbours. It was bliss. We would play Panditji's abhang CDs real loud. Husband would do pooja; I would sing along and clean house. "Ramache bhajan techi majhe dhyaan" was a favourite.

But this sudden fondness for Bhimsen Joshi came after we attended his concert at Bangalore at the Koramangala Indoor Stadium. It was probably in 2004 or 2005. It was one of those rare occasions that Panditji was singing in Bangalore. He was wheeled onto the stage and that kind of suddenly knocked into my senses that he's ageing. But once he started singing, that age was nowhere in sight...rather sound. He was in concert with the other maverick maestro we all grow up listening to in the South -- M. Balamuralikrishna. It's one of those once-in-a-lifetime experiences tucked away in my mind.

Then when I got pregnant with Sonny Boy, I would listen to Panditji's rendition of "Dasavani". I think that's what my cassette title was. Sonny used to kick furiously late evenings when I would walk in my parents' garden up and down, up and down, till I'd heard the entire tape, with one headphone sitting on my belly and one in my ear! I wanted Sonny to listen to Bhimsen Joshi in my womb -- I still can't figure out exactly why -- probably simply because I loved the music. "Karuniso Ranga", "Yaake mukanaadyo", "Sadaa yenna hrudayadalli", "Yaadava nee baa yadukula nandana" and so many more. Sung with the accompaniment of the harmonium (an instrument I like to hear with only certain kinds of songs) it always takes me to a different plane of consciousness.

Here's thanking a musician who helped me connect with our Indian music and a rich poetic heritage, with its multi-lingual traditions, with its love for an expression of "bhakti".