This is turning out to be the season of deaths. Deaths of people whom we wanted to live. Shammi Kapoor, the Nawab, Steve Jobs and now Jagjit Singh.
As the news flashed on my mobile this morning, my mind went back to a concert which I had attended with my wife, Shila, at Siri Fort Auditorium. To a packed hall he sang for hours, including his very famous numbers. There was just one song which haunted me for days. The one in which he remembered his son. The lyrics, the score, his rendition.
I never had an opportunity to hear Jagjit Singh again, nor did I ever hear the song. It just lingered in my memory. I must have been touched. This morning as I learnt of his death, it all came back to me. Just that this time No Chhitthi, No Sandesh could reach the man we so dearly loved.
What made Jagjit Singh the King of Ghazals? I think he is perhaps just the one singular reason why Ghazals as a music genre is so popular today in the Indian subcontinent. An everyday music, just like film songs. And the endearing voice of Jagjit Singh carried the Ghazals from the confines of aristocracy to the drawing rooms, the buses, to even Shambhu the pan wallah. He had done the very same thing that Pankaj Mullick had done scores of years ago with Rabindra Sangeet. We have Mehdi Hassan, Munni Begum, Anup Jalota, all stars in the subcontinent, but somewhere Jagjit Singh was the shining star. He was actually one of us, sang in a language that we all understood, helping the appreciation gaining wider acceptance.
Almost 25 years ago I had the privilege of meeting Jagjit Singh in a different role. He had come to score the music for an ad film for Bata, which was being directed by Jyoti Thakur. It was for Bata canvas shoes and meant for the theatres, requiring a pan Indian rural touch. I was thrilled to see him score the music on harmonium, explain it to the hands and finally to Suresh Wadkar who was the lead singer. When he heard I was from the agency ASP, he told me that when he had first come to Mumbai his first jingle was for a brand that ASP handled. He had no airs, no frills and mingled with us as an ordinary mortal.
That quality perhaps immortalised him. A man whose death has got Radio Stations and social network sites working over time. A nation is in grief.
We have all lost someone who was one of us.
sujitsmusings 
It was really shocking when I learned about the legend Jagjit Singh’s passing way in the morning.I am a big fan of Jagjit Singh’s Music.It might sound bit strange for the people who know me as I am just a post-graduate student.But i have liking for this singing maestro since i was in class 9. there are many songs where i could place myself with the Lyrics . i have a huge collection of his songs in my laptop as well as in my mobile.He was a true musician with an extra-ordinary voice made only for ghazals …may his soul rest in peace…
Yes, Gaurav. He has been a part of our lives ever since he hit the scene.And today, if youngsters like you are in to Ghazals, much of the credit actually goes to him.
Jagjit Singh revived and revolutionized ghazal singing, taking it beyond the niche audience….to cite an example of his presence of mind, once at a concert, along with scores of requests, someone sent him the ‘farmaish’ to sing ‘sheela ki jawani’… instead of showing his annoyance, he started singing his all-time popular number, ‘yeh daulat bhi le lo, yeh shohrat bhi le lo,’ and then to everyone’s surprise came the next line ‘bhale cheen lo mujhse Sheela ki jawani’ in lieu of the original line, ‘ mujhse meri jawani’ — that was Jagjit Singh….as rightly mentioned in the blog, “one of us”…will miss him real bad..