GHAZALS – songs that create a world of expressions

INTRODUCTION

This is a short study of one of the most prominent branch of music from India. Ghazals are poetry of immense beauty and sung in small or big gatherings with followers of the poet come and listen usually in the evening times. It creates an ambiance in the gathering that no other music can create. First we will analyze very comprehensively the structure of a Ghazal and later we survey the most prominent (not exclusive) line of Ghazal singers.

Structure

A Ghazal is usually a poetic expression of Love, Passion and pain of separation, loss of something that one feel close to and every other emotions we can imagine; at the same time it make one feel that weirdly feeling that something is going to take all that happiness away. The lyrics of the ghazals originated from Arabic poetry and full of words that came right from Urudu language, with deep meanings that is very difficult to translate into any other language. The main subject of interest are generally representation of love and separation.

A typical ghazal is generally composed of a minimum five couplets (not more than fifteen couplets max). The lines are in their structure and theme very independent in the content. The length of each line in most cases are of the same length which makes them metered. The very first couplet (two lines together makes a couplet in Ghazals) introduces a theme in which the first line is made of a rhyme followed by a refrain. In every following couplet the second line repeat mostly the refrain of the first couplet. The final couplet will always include the signature of the poet, as himself referring to the author as the first or third person (almost all cases it will be poets own name included)

Agha Shahid Ali

Agha is an American-Gahzal singer who made Ghazals popular outside of India. He is born Kashmiri and to a most famous Agha family from Kashmir (most of the family members are famous educators in Kashmir). H held faculty position at many Universities in US and lastly he was teaching at University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Here is an interview that reveal this Ghazal poet who wrote it in English and thus made it famous elsewhere. https://www.pw.org/content/interview_poet_agha_shahid_ali

At the end of this essay, we have included one of the most famous Ghazal written in English “Even The Rain” by Agha. This is added for you to understand the principles of Ghazal writing. These are few of Inida’s famous Ghazal poet geniuses made Ghazal poetry famous abroad. Agha was born in New Delhi but later migrated abroad and did some phenomenal work on popularizing Ghazal style poetry.

We will survey very quickly the singers who took this branch of music to common people and brought the right emotions into the lines and immortalized. Our very first pick none other than Jagjit Singh.

Jagjit Singh

Jagjit’s tribute to his son who died in a violent car accident at the age of 20. This song explains what a ghazal singing can bring to singing. Here the pain of losing a son before he started a life is beyond comprehension. Jagjth’s wife Chitra stopped singing and retired and never returned to public singing. Give a listen. You will hear all the pain of parent losing a child in these lines. Earlier in a related feature the Qateel’s poem (sung by Maitreyee) also was a prayer to god, but more filled with the sorrows of human existence and how we all cope with them is beautifully brought out in a ghazal singing.

Mehdi Hassan

He is from Pakistan and known as King of Ghazals. Listen to that finest singing that one can ever get enough of. Hariharan of the modern times have got some of that magic from his voice.

Ghulam Ali

Born in Pakistan, he belong to the Patiala Gharana, he is considered one of finest of ghazal singer ever and he ruled the Ghazal singing world during his peak years.

Pankaj Udhas

Hail from Gujarat one of the most revered and also successful in movie industry to sing many Bollywood Ghazals. Listen to this following video for sure. He says if your wife is not in the mood, sing this Ghazal to her it may save few days to keep her not fight with you. He is one Ghazal singer with a unique voice and a very nice tone to his singing.

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan

Again of Pakistani origin, mainly known as a Qawwali style singing . His vocal range of singing is one of the most revered possession of this singer.He is known as the one singer of the world who can sing such difficulty levels of singing and is respected by many who like to try open throat singing.

Abida Parveen

She is a Sufi singer and she is known as the queen of Sufi singing. She is a singer of her own style and very successful in popularizing this style of singing.

Hariharan

Born in southern state of Kerala and grew up mainly in Bombay, born to Carnatic vocalists, Shrimati Alamelu and the late H.A.S. Mani (full name:Anantha Subramani). He was destined to become a singer although he initially he try to pursue a career with a degree in Science. His career graph in singing took a very steep progression with his association with A. R. Rahman in the Kollywood movie industry. Some of the movie songs he sang is only can be sung by him; nobody ever able to bring all the slight variations he could bring to his singing. Every song he sang will have a million of variations of singing strewn into his singing.

Anoop Jalota

He is known mostly for his Bhajans and devotional style of singing. He is a story teller, his singing is so much listener involved.

Chandan Dass

A great proponent of Mehdi Hassan and considered one of the finest musicians of Ghazal singing.

Penaz Masani

Penaz known for her beautiful voice and unique style of Ghazal singing. Here she is singing Mirza Ghalib poetry who lived in Mughal era. Listen to her, lyrics seems to flow with that singing style; literally they are flowing one after another. Where is she breathing? very little in between.

Rahat Fateh Ali khan

He is from Pakistan, he sings mainly devotional Sufi music. He is related to Nusrat (he is his nephew). Here he sings a Qwwali style song but mix of Ghazal. He is born into a family of musicians and he show so many influences. Sometime he sound some modern Hindi Pop. Very beautiful and those nasal toned high notes are magical.

END NOTES:

We could not include many other great Ghazal singers due to the limitations. Time period of last four decades saw a golden age of many great Ghazal singers lived and entertained an entire population of Ghazal listeners through their Ghazal singing. They conveyed the most finest human feelings through their songs. We cried and laughed with them. We accepted them and their all emotions into our heart. Now it is time of young singers to say that  we want to be that singer. Few singers we featured earlier here Ashwin Kumar and Ali Zafar (Yugal, Milan Lama and Ali Zafar- Three singers from the banks of mighty river Ganga (Ganges) who said they aspire to become ghazal singers. There is a whole lot of opportunities out there that will open a lot of space for your self expression. All the great expressions you heard here is very much based on the Hindustani classical music training.

WE leave you guys with a Ghazal written in English, the details of the Poet is described above. Read the poetry with the rules used in making lyrics for a Ghazal. ENJOY

POETRY TIME

GHAZALS WRITTEN IN ENGLISH

Even the Rain

Agha Shahid Ali, 1949 – 2001

What will suffice for a true-love knot? Even the rain?
But he has bought grief’s lottery, bought even the rain.

“Our glosses / wanting in this world”—“Can you remember?”
Anyone!—“when we thought / the poets taught” even the rain?

After we died—That was it!—God left us in the dark.
And as we forgot the dark, we forgot even the rain.

Drought was over. Where was I? Drinks were on the house.
For mixers, my love, you’d poured—what?—even the rain.

Of this pear-shaped orange’s perfumed twist, I will say:
Extract Vermouth from the bergamot, even the rain.

How did the Enemy love you—with earth? air? and fire?
He held just one thing back till he got even: the rain.

This is God’s site for a new house of executions?
You swear by the Bible, Despot, even the rain?

After the bones—those flowers—this was found in the urn:
The lost river, ashes from the ghat, even the rain.

What was I to prophesy if not the end of the world?
A salt pillar for the lonely lot, even the rain.

How the air raged, desperate, streaming the earth with flames—
To help burn down my house, Fire sought even the rain.

He would raze the mountains, he would level the waves;
he would, to smooth his epic plot, even the rain.

New York belongs at daybreak to only me, just me—
To make this claim Memory’s brought even the rain.

They’ve found the knife that killed you, but whose prints are these?
No one has such small hands, Shahid, not even the rain.