Back to back tributes mark Jagjit Singh’s tenth anniversary
Back to back tributes mark Jagjit Singh’s tenth anniversary
Tejinder Singh Bedi
It has been ten years since the Ghazal legend Jagjit Singh left this world. And he left not just a void but a big crater, in the world of music though still continuing to live in the hearts of millions of his fans across the globe. To remember the rich contributions made by the maestro, back to back tributes were paid in his memory on the 9th and the 10th of October. The format of offering tributes having shifted to virtual in most gatherings with the Pecosian (Punjab Engineering College Old Students Association), Tejinder Singh Bedi roping in singers from a variety of streams like the civil services, practicing doctors, entrepreneurs, bankers, businessmen, a few professional singers besides his fellow engineers & corporate colleagues.
Leading the pack besides himself were the Retired Air Vice Marshal Rakesh Yadav, Retired Additional Director General of Police (Haryana), Rajbir Deswal, Surinder Kumar formerly Retired Director the I & B Ministry, Retired Chief Engineer V D Sharma, Delhi Police Inspector Gurmeet Singh, Dr Alok Sharma, business leaders Naresh Khurana & Gulshan Madan from the NCR, Ustaad Chandan Mukherjee from Bangalore, bankers Mahipal Naval & Panchanan Adhikari from Jaipur besides others.
In another parallel tribute, Bedi’s colleague; Jasbir Singh Chhabra from his alma mater, the Punjab Engineering College of Chandigarh brought a large number of music lover Pecosians, from across the globe in which Bedi’s leading renditions were co joined by solo performances by Jasbir Singh Chhabra, Sulakshan Mahajan and Subash Sachdev of 1970 & 71 batches in a major event anchored by #RituBatra for #EHOMA, one of the sponsors to the virtual meet.
Another global group of Jagjit Singh fans managed by Rohit Jain based out of Canada featured Tony Singh, T S Bedi, Amrish Puri, Vijay Sehgal, Barunava Banerjee, Reaz Bhai, Dr Naveen Solanki, Shailendra Singh Mannu Joshi each recalling a few really interesting experiences with the legend. A great follower of Jagjit Singh’s ghazals, Amrish Mishra who is travelling through the United States was roped in by the New York Television Channel for a nostalgic recall of his tutelage under the great Guru and for a beautiful performance of some of the most popular numbers sung by Jagjit Singh.
Students of the department of music, Punjabi University, Patiala also organized a dedicated afternoon of the legend’s ghazals and compositions in the august presence of Jagjit Singh’s lifelong companions Kuldeep Desai, Jaspal Singh Dham, S D Sharma and others under an initiative of Dr Nivedita Singh — the Head of Department of Music at the University.
At the legend’s birth place, Sri Ganga Nagar in Rajasthan, Pushpanjali organized a musical evening dedicated to the compositions sung by Jagjit Singh & his wife Chitra Singh. Sabrang lead by Jagjit ji’s disciple Tauseef Akhtar offered floral musical tributes from Mumbai in collaboration with the legend’s lifelong musicians Abhinav Upadhya on Tabla and Deepak Pundit on violin. The celebrations will continue throughout the week with Jagjit Ji’s youngest brother Kartar Singh performing live in Delhi, Panipat, Karnal & Mumbai.
Much as the reigning King of Ghazals had no parallel during his lifetime, (1941 to 2011), the decade gone since he left has not seen even a single voice that can claim to come anywhere close to his velvety, magical vocals booming with a bass rarely found. No wonder the respect and the dignity that Jagjit Singh had been immensely successful in bringing back to the genre of ghazal renditions is fast waning away. Jagjit Singh’s era had legendary maestros like his senior Mehdi Hassan and his contemporary Ghulam Ali but the place he carved out for himself placed him at the forefront of this genre across the world for nearly five decades. It is unfortunate that as stated a stroke of brain hemorrhage had taken him away from his fans on Oct 10, 2011 — at a rather youthful spring of his seventieth year, while he was still very actively pursuing his promised 70 concerts around the world during this year of his life!