Article first published as Mehdi Hassan: The Emperor Of Ghazals Passes Away! on Technorati.
He had always
been regarded as the most original Ghazal singer. He came into fame in 1957 in Pakistan and
dominated the sixties and the seventies with a career ranging five decades. Bad
health started plaguing him from the eighties when the masses, particularly in India,
started listening to Ghazals and began to admire and love those thanks mainly
to the friendlier and popular compositions of Ghulam Ali and Jagjit Singh. But
even now, whenever we talk of Ghazal artistes we are told to go back to Mehdi
Hassan to relish the essence of pure Ghazals.
Mehdi Hassan was
born into a family of musicians in the Indian state of Rajasthan in 1927. Though
his ancestors had been traditional singers of Dhrupad and though he had
a burning passion for music Mehdi Hassan had the hardest time coming to music.
Financially in trouble his family shifted to Pakistan during the Partition in
1947 and there in Pakistan Mehdi worked in a bicycle shop finally becoming a
mechanic to help his family.
But Mehdi never
gave up on music. Finally, he got a chance to sing a thumri in Radio Pakistan
in 1957 and there was no looking back since then. Perceiving his immense talent
his mentors encouraged him to sing Ghazals and over time he established his
style of Ghazal singing firmly in Pakistan with his soulful voice, pure Urdu
lyrics and effortless control over the ragas and gradually his fame spread to
different parts of the world. He also did quite a few numbers for the Urdu film
industry in Pakistan.
Mehdi Hassan
always yearned to visit India—his
home country. His dream was fulfilled only in 1978 when he performed in India. But his
visits had not been frequent due to his bad health. His last performance in India was in
2000. He wanted to come back in 2008, but the Mumbai terror attack prevented
that. Lately he desperately needed to be in India to meet Lata Mangeshkar and
Amitabh Bachchan, but his deteriorating health never allowed him to do so. Ironically
the legendary artiste was scheduled to come to India for medical treatment soon.
The Indian
masses flocked on to the Ghazal genre of music when Jagjit Singh, a disciple of
Mehdi Hassan, revolutionized the genre by making it linguistically familiar and
with compositions more like modern Hindi songs; and when Ghulam Ali started his
regular performances in India mixing Indian Classical and folk music in his
Ghazals making his compositions readily acceptable and hugely popular. His
popularity in India
was further heightened by his singing Bollywood (read Hindi) movie songs. Other
popular Ghazal singers like Talat Aziz who also learned from Mehdi, PenazMasani, Pankaj Udhas, Anup Jalota and the like joined in the wave.
But Mehdi Hassan
remained the Emperor of Ghazals for all in India and elsewhere. Lata
Mangeshkar, the nightingale of India,
lauded Mehdi as the ‘voice of God’ and in fact, she took up a famous Mehdi
number, added her voice to it and released the duet in an album in 2010.
The Emperor
finally decided to get rid of his obstinately sick body and ascend to heaven.
Mehdi Hassan, the legend, died in a Karachi Hospital on today
after a long battle with a lung disease and multiple organ failure. Indian music lovers comprising of
celebrity performers of Ghazal and other genres of music, the film fraternity
and the common people mourn his death deeply realizing the loss as irreparable.
Mehdi Hassan has
ceased, but his music remains as strong as ever.
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