A tribute to Jagjit Singh, the master of melancholy

On October 10th, while I was at Varanasi (and dealing with the
melancholy of my moods -- I have always associated Varanasi with
the cremation ghats and the Kasidaasins -- and the cacophonies
of the city) Ghazal Maestro Jagjit Singh passed away after a
protracted illness.

He was 70, but like most singers (and poets, painters and
artists) he will never have an age, never die for those who
have known and experienced the spellbinding depth of his voice.

I am not a music aficionado, nor can I claim to be any kind of a
connoisseur -- of the fascinating world of "old Hindi" -- of quiz
details like who wrote the lyrics of which song, who composed the
music and who were the lead pair and so on.

Heck, I am one of those rare ignoramuses who cannot decide for
sure if a particular song has been sung by Rafi or Mukesh. And at
the very outset, I need to make a clean breast of the fact that I
know zilch about the intricacies of music, I cannot differentiate
between a khayal and a thumri or whatever...

But -- though I am a layman and have absolutely no "ear for
music" -- for as long as I remember, I have been singing old
hindi songs to myself and since most of these songs used to be
slow, sad, melancholy numbers in which the song is more or less
a lyric accompanied by music, in the repeated singing to myself,
I have ingrained those cadences and rhythms...and also burnt
those lines...on my being.

You could also say that somewhere in the singing of those songs
is when I developed the "ambition" of becoming a shayar / kavi /
poet and long before I really had to deal with any loss, I
probably realized (and made peace with the realization) that
immaterial of how true the lie called "happiness" is, life's
underlying truth is that it is melancholy, and dark and
layered with pathos, more or less as expressed in the lines

राही मनवा दुःख की चिंता क्यों सताती है
दुःख तो अपना साथी है

सुख है एक छाँव, ढलती आती जाती है
दुःख तो अपना साथी है

(from the film Dosti)

And yes, (as I keep telling everyone) somewhere along the same
time I realised the depth of meaning (three layers of
imagination, location, analogy, metaphor, whatever) in the
lines

कहीं दूर जब दिन ढल जाये
सांझ की दुल्हन बदन चुराए, चुप के से आये

and have always wanted to write lines that are as vivid, as
imaginative, as powerful. And yes, for me Hindi will always be
the the language of gravitas, meant for writing down and
chronicling the occasional untranslatable line that is truest
the way it comes and not for the frivolity of communicating
banalities like

फ्रेश फ्रूट जूस पार्लर

So maybe immaterial of all my known and unknown shortcomings,
I am qualified to write about Jagjit Singh, considering that
most of his songs had an unsurpassable element of gravitas
and melancholy, if not downright gut-wrenching sadness and I
have connected to them, heard them on a radio, a cassette player,
etc.; heard them sung by friends and sang them to friends while
high on rum and coke in a bonding that was in all probability
more about teenage angst than it was about the rum or the song
itself. And yes, most of those lines are burnt in my being, the
same way lines of poetry are.

So they still reverberate in me, even these days when I don't
listen to any music thanks to my bum ears.

So they still reverberate in me, and in fact I can creditably
sing some of them, closing my eyes and going along with the
flow of blessed memory, of remembered song.

Like, for instance this song that a friend (here in Hyderabad)
used to repeatedly sing -- at cafes, in the college parking
lot, at his place ostensibly for combined studies (in the balcony
while sharing a smoke) up at 2.00 in the night, and at all
those Rum Coke sessions.

प्यार का पहला ख़त लिखने में वक़्त तो लगता है
नयी परिंदों को उड़ने में वक़्त तो लगता है

Need I mention that those were the days when my friend was
going through a phase of "should I propose?", "dare I propose?",
"what if she rejects me?" and all those questions that run pell mell
through a young man wooing a young woman?

Or, the exquisitely hummable, oh-so-simple, right from the heart
echoing call of

होंठों से छु लो तुम
मेरा गीत अमर कर दो

बन जाओ मीत मेरे
मेरा प्रीत अमर कर दो

that I used to sing along with the cassette player and while
serenading my own loneliness in buses (and the occasional Auto)
while still into my second year in Hyderabad. Did I mention I
was lonely? Oh yes, its confession time, I used to keep a diary
those days and almost every week used to start with the entry --
"Need to decide what to do in life and need to get a girlfriend
soon"...So maybe, that song was Jagjit Singh singing to my elusive
girlfriend, or he and I singing together, or me singing it to
myself, while Jagjit Singh would lip synch to a spell bound
audience.

There were other Jagjit Singh songs too -- that I listened
to in rapt attention (and sang to myself) as I would beg borrow
and steal any Jagjit Singh (and Yesudas and other Ghazal / Old
Hindi) cassettes that I could and since I never got around to
getting hooked to "pop music" (maybe because I couldn't get the
lyrics over all that high frequency "music") and just had
three other cassettes -- Yanni, Khaled and Eric Clapton to
listen to, I would get bored of the "change" pretty soon and go
back to Jagjit Singh.

And thus, I got to hear the wonderfully knowing

तुम इतना जो मुस्कुरा रहे हो
क्या गम है जिसको छुपा रहे हो

The intensely romantic

तुम को देखा तो ये ख्याल आया
जिंदगी धुप तुम घना साया

and so many others, that though I can't recollect them now -- are
as familiar and permanent as the memories of old friends.

But the one song that made Jagjit Singh what he is to me is the
one where he is less of melody, technique and nuance but completely
and absolutely a requiem of grief, a gut-wrenching voice calling
out in the totality of the pain of loss. The song (if I remember
right) he sang after the death of his only son --

दर्द से मेरा दामन भर दे या अल्लाह
फिर चाहे दीवाना कर दे या अल्लाह

In all probability someone more knowledgeable or well read than me
had told me this and maybe I read more into this song because I
know (or think I know) what Jagjit Singh means by "dard" and
"deewana" in the song...I could be wrong about all that...
but somehow this has to be the ultimate song when it comes to loss
and grief for me.

The ultimate.

You will be the ultimate ever for me Jagjit Singh Ji, the
ultimate, and forever alive, because I don't even need to listen
to your songs to connect with the blessed oeuvre that you have
voiced for us, left behind for us...

For your ultimate songs reverberate in me, resonate in me, reside in
me.

As found poems.

And memories where I can find more poetry.

Thank you.

Invoking the scribe -- 2

For some peculiar reason I am still caught up with memories juxtaposed with Ganesh Chaturthi; memories that seem very much mine but also have that sepia-shade of being touched by time; seeming almost as if they are from another life.

I remember the elephants (from across the border and Bihar) waddle-walking down the colony road, in a ponderous convoy of twos and threes. Then the shrill trumpets at every gate meant to summon the lady of the house -- with money and rice for the mahout and a tidbit for the lumbering giant.

I also remember how I would sometimes get a "paid" ride on an elephant (only if my father or an uncle was at home) and how most of the adults of the colony would bargain for a bristle of hair from the elephant's tail -- meant to bring prosperity.

I remember the culinary celebrations at home -- mostly dealing with delicacies that would rarely (if at all) be made till September and Lord Ganesha came again. For instance, idli batter cooked in baskets of green jackfruit leaves. To be eaten with a assortment of sambars and chutneys, each more un-idli-like than the next! I also remember the numerous types of coconut ladoos, the junnu, the payasams and so on......

And I remember a particular Brinjal curry that my Grandmother would cook when we used to have a get together of uncles, aunts and so on -- after counting the number of heads -- of which everyone would want second helpings. This is a curry that deserves a separate post altogether not only for the time-taking way it used to be made and the memories of taste associated with it but because of the name that one of my uncles had given to it -- one that would scandalize my Grandmother everytime I would utter it!

The end of September (and the Visarjan of Lord Ganesha) also meant a slackening of the rains and the arrival of sun-splashed, green gold days. And the beginnings of group picnics and escapades to pokhuris, rivers and other water-bodies buzzing with a gazillion dragonflies.

To be followed by Durga Puja and winter, of course.

Invoking the scribe -- 1

I work on the other side of the lake and my commute extends from one city to another. Which means that one of the small joys that I can partake of on a daily basis (apart from Sundays) is a ride across the Bund and also that I get to see Hussein Sagar (with its changing colours, depths and moods) on a daily basis.

I am an observer, even when I am on the Bullet, immaterial of the usual dangers and risks poetic in a fast-moving city; immaterial of someone trying to overtake me from the left and someone else wanting to shoulder a way from the right and someone else wanting me to get out of his / her way.

But then, this post is not progressing the right way, it should ideally start with what happened on last Thursday. That was when it took me almost 2 hours to make it to the other side of the lake (the Bund was closed to traffic) and no, I am not going to rant about the city's lack of civic sense or other metropolitan woes.

You see, last Wednesday was when the immersion happened here in Hyderabad. And this time around it seems that the turnout of the people participating in the immersion and the number of idols were both unprecedented and thus it continued for most part of Thursday too.

I am talking of the immersion procession of the elephant-headed god, Ganesha.

Peculiarly enough (maybe because of my substantial commute this year) Ganesha has been constantly on my mind this year and I have been to more of his Pandals and immersion processions this time around than in other years.

I have been stuck on Tank Bund inordinately and ridden my way on egg shells as people have crossed the Bund barefoot -- grandmothers, mothers, daughters, fathers and sons -- entire families with their family's Ganesha. To bid him adieu till next year by immersing him in the waters.

I have chuckled to myself on finding Necklace Road open and ride-able (as opposed to being a mass of lake-watching people the very next day) and also noted that probably this is the only time when Tank Bund looks brighter and more necklace like than Necklace Road!

I have thrilled at the quaint logic and arithmetic of my mind which finally calculated and understood the reason why Lord Ganesha is also known as Bhima -- while I had slowed down in front of yet another pandal on yet another day. As something about the colour of the idol or the lighting in the pandal or some enlightenment in my mind lets me conclude that the lovable (and petulant) child God is simultaneously massive and elephant headed too.

And lastly (you could say it all started here) I have ridden as if my very life depended on it -- slowly and with utmost caution while three of his idols in wet, unbaked clay, sat pillion on the back seat of the Bullet. And felt very blessed to reach home and find all three idols intact.

I have wanted to blog all this for quite some time. And as with most observations and memories the delay in writing means I have forgotten a lot of things. Still, mine's the hope that with this blog post up, I can write a bit more (am dealing with a persistent writer's block as of now) and I hope the original scribe, Lord Ganesha blesses me to write well.

Om Ganeshaya Namaha

(O Lord Ganapati!) You are (the Trinity) Brahma, Vishnu, and Mahesa. You are Indra. You are fire [Agni] and air [Vāyu]. You are the sun [Sūrya] and the moon [Chandrama]. You are Brahman. You are (the three worlds) Bhuloka [earth], Antariksha-loka [space], and Swargaloka [heaven]. You are Om. (That is to say, You are all this).