Page 43 - Seniors Toady March 2020

were earlier restricted to courts of kings and
Begum Akhtar
Saath Saath and Bazaar. The craze lasted till the
mid-1980s, and suddenly faded away. Though
there have been short-term revivals, and there
are many talented artistes on the scene today, too
much clutter and an overall decline in quality led
to a debacle after the sudden rise In the 1980s.
The beginnings
As a style, the ghazal wasn’t new. Musicologists
trace its origins to the 7th century Arab world,
before moving to Persia and the Indian sub-
continent. The term is said to be derived from a
phrase meaning ‘art of talking to a lady’.
Though the word is used in a broad sense, a
ghazal involves recitation of couplets in a specific
rhyming manner and with a common meter.
Related forms are the nazm, or free-flowing
poem, the rubaai, having four-line divisions, and
the geet, a simple love song. Urdu and Hindi are
prominent languages though ghazals were later
written in Punjabi, Gujarati and Marathi too,
albeit on a smaller scale.
The backbone of the ghazal is the poet, and the
singer’s role is to express his words. Though
most Urdu poetry uses romance or separation as
themes, ghazals with political, environmental or
humorous connotations have been penned too.
The late 18th and early 19th centuries produced
great poets like Mir Taqi Mir, Mirza Ghalib,
Momin Khan Momin and Dagh Dehlvi, whose
work is rendered even today. However, recitals
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private gatherings. Along with ghazals, the
spiritual form of Sufi music also developed,
and were presented in shrines and community
centres.
In the 1930s, recorded music and talkie cinema
expanded the audience for ghazals. One of the
early recorded artistes was teenage sensation
Master Madan, who sadly died at age 14. In 1940s
and 1950s films, Kundan Lal Saigal and Talat
Mahmood were prominent ghazal singers, and
many Lata Mangeshkar songs were written in
that format. Music directors Naushad and Madan
Mohan became known for their ghazals, whereas
Roshan and Naushad adapted the Sufi qawwali
in a popular manner. Writers Shakeel Badayuni,
Sahir Ludhianvi, Kaifi Azmi, Jan Nisar Akhtar
and Raja Mehdi Ali Khan wrote many timeless
film ghazals.
After Partition, Pakistan saw the emergence
of many ghazal artistes. The most prolific was
Mehdi Hassan, who took the form to another
level with his classical-based singing style and
refined choice of poetry. Noor Jehan, Mallika
Pukhraj, Iqbal Bano and Farida Khanum
stormed the scene, and later Ghulam Ali and
Nayyara Noor became popular. In the 1970s,
even Sufi singers like Pathaney Khan and Nusrat
Fateh Ali Khan recorded ghazals.
In India, Begum Akhtar was the undisputed
ghazal queen in the 1950s and 1960s, lacing her
songs with a distinct pathos. She worked a lot
with composer Khayyam and her death in 1974
marked the end of an era. Rajendra and Nina
Mehta started the concept of ghazal couples, and
Jagjit and Chitra Singh took that forward.
Trends changed too. Keeping general listeners
in mind, singers started choosing simpler
poetry. They also moved from the traditional
harmonium-sarangi-tabla set-up to include
western and film-inspired arrangements. Many
of these changes were finetuned by Jagjit Singh.
Some of the developments had their critics, as
purists complained of a dilution of the art form.
But on a larger scale, more people began relating
SENIORS TODAY | Issue #9 | March 15, 2020