Bollywood has no taste for ghazals: Jagjit Singh
The veteran musician believes that today’s cinema has nothing to do with literature.
NEW DELHI:
Ghazal maestro Jagjit Singh keeps his distance from Bollywood because he feels that filmmakers are money-minded and don’t appreciate the genre anymore. “Filmmakers have no taste for ghazals. A lot of youngsters like soft songs these days, but Bollywood has no interest in ghazals anymore” said Singh.
Singh, the 70-year-old veteran, who has sung songs like “Hoshwaalon ko khabar kya”, “Kiska chehra” and “Tum itna jo muskua rahe ho” in movies, added: “I do not say that Bollywood has become commercialised in recent times, it was always about money-making, but earlier tastes were different. Cinema was a part of literature, but today’s cinema has nothing to do with literature. That soul is lacking and it is only about entertainment nowadays.” Singh has been singing for over four decades and has released 50 albums. He has sung in languages as diverse as Punjabi, Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Gujarati, Sindhi and Nepali, and continues to enthrall his audiences. But Bollywood is something he now gives a miss.
“See, I hardly ever had a connection with Bollywood. All through my career, I seldom sang for movies. I was always focused on my individual career as a singer, and concentrated on my bhajans and albums, something that I still do,” he said. The singer, who was honoured with the Padma Bhushan, India’s third highest civilian award, in 2003, is currently staging a concert, Ghazal Symphony, across different cities in India. He will perform live with 30 musicians in Gurgaon on April 24.
“I will sing around 20 ghazals — all of them being my old songs, but the musical arrangement will be a little different. There will be a lot of instruments like violin, flute, tabla and guitar that will be used; so it will add a whole new feel to my old numbers,” he said. Singh is keen to lure youngsters with this initiative. “I hope ghazals will start appealing to the youngsters with this effort. My product is the same; only the packaging is going to be new in this concert,” he said. In the meantime, he is also working on two albums, one each comprising of ghazals and bhajans.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 01st, 2011.
Ghazal maestro Jagjit Singh keeps his distance from Bollywood because he feels that filmmakers are money-minded and don’t appreciate the genre anymore. “Filmmakers have no taste for ghazals. A lot of youngsters like soft songs these days, but Bollywood has no interest in ghazals anymore” said Singh.
Singh, the 70-year-old veteran, who has sung songs like “Hoshwaalon ko khabar kya”, “Kiska chehra” and “Tum itna jo muskua rahe ho” in movies, added: “I do not say that Bollywood has become commercialised in recent times, it was always about money-making, but earlier tastes were different. Cinema was a part of literature, but today’s cinema has nothing to do with literature. That soul is lacking and it is only about entertainment nowadays.” Singh has been singing for over four decades and has released 50 albums. He has sung in languages as diverse as Punjabi, Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Gujarati, Sindhi and Nepali, and continues to enthrall his audiences. But Bollywood is something he now gives a miss.
“See, I hardly ever had a connection with Bollywood. All through my career, I seldom sang for movies. I was always focused on my individual career as a singer, and concentrated on my bhajans and albums, something that I still do,” he said. The singer, who was honoured with the Padma Bhushan, India’s third highest civilian award, in 2003, is currently staging a concert, Ghazal Symphony, across different cities in India. He will perform live with 30 musicians in Gurgaon on April 24.
“I will sing around 20 ghazals — all of them being my old songs, but the musical arrangement will be a little different. There will be a lot of instruments like violin, flute, tabla and guitar that will be used; so it will add a whole new feel to my old numbers,” he said. Singh is keen to lure youngsters with this initiative. “I hope ghazals will start appealing to the youngsters with this effort. My product is the same; only the packaging is going to be new in this concert,” he said. In the meantime, he is also working on two albums, one each comprising of ghazals and bhajans.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 01st, 2011.