Fan does a PhD on Jagjit Singh

Ahmedabad: Here's what an avid fan of ghazal mastero Jagjit Singh is doing - taking up ghazal (classical Indian form of singing) of this mesmerizing singer as a research topic for his doctorate degree.

A resident of Vadodara and a doctorate student at the Faculty of Performing Arts at Maharaja Sayajirao University (MSU), Dollar Mehta is working on an interesting thesis titled The growth of Ghazal gayaki in post-Independence India and the contribution of Jagjit Singh in it.

Mehta, who did his masters in Indian classical music (vocal) from MSU, said "It is Jagjit Singh who took ghazal from its elitist confines and served it to the man on the street in a manner which suited his taste."

"In the past, ghazal was meant for a select audience and restricted to courts of kings and nobles," he said.

"But when Jagjit Singh made his debut in the ghazal circuit in the 1970s, he simplified the entire concept and took this form closer to the masses, Mehta remarked.

Mehta, 33-year-old, who has a large collection of ghazals, is also a professional ghazal singer and runs a troupe 'The Dollar show' in Vadodara.

According to Mehta, "Ghazal singers like Mehndi Hassan, Begum Akhtar and Ghulam Ali made liberal use of Urdu in their ghazals which were actually meant for a select audience."

"However, Jagjit sprinkled Hindi words in his ghazals making it more comprehensive to a large section of the society," he said about the diction changes that accompanied the icon in the ghazal circuit.

Mehta, who is into his fifth year of research under the guidance of Professor D K Bhosle at MSU, said "The mastero also brought about a change in the tunes of ghazals and made it so simple that any person without the knowledge of classical singing could easily hum these ghazals."

Traditionally ghazals used to be sung in classical ragas like Yaman, Bhim Palasi, Bhairavi, Darbari and others which were difficult for any layman to hum, he said.

Mehta, who is now attempting to launch a ghazal album having his own compositions, said Jagjit Singh also "departed from classical ghazal subjects".

Traditionally there are two large types of ghazals, Ishq-e-Hakiki where ghazals deal with spirituality and philosophy and Ishq-e-Nizaji where ideas of love, friendship, sadness and other human feelings are expressed, he pointed out.

Though Singh used these subjects in his ghazal, he also sung about every-day problems that a common man has to deal with. For instance in the stanzas... "Ab mein ration ke Kataron mein nazar aata hu, apne kheto se bhichand ne ki saza pata hu..." Singh depicts a farmer standing in a queue of ration shop thinking that he is punished for selling his farm-land in the village and flocking to the city.