What has happened to Ghazal Gayki

Desist Instant Nirvan  

People in my age group have seen glory of Ghazal rendition. Talented Ghazal singers like Mehndi Hasan, Gulam Ali, Jagjit Chitra  Singh, Rajendra Nina Mehta, Vijay Sudha Singh  brought best of the Urdu Poetry condensed with their unique Gayki style and lilting music. They were instant hit , found name, fame and money. They were followed by Talat Aziz, Pankaj Udhas , Ghanshyam Vasvani, Chandan Das, Bhupinder Mitali Singh, kaapi der Singh  and partly Anup Jalota. I also remember all of them generated huge fan following , fans ready to wakeup for whole night to listen to their concert.

In fact I am not including singers in the league such as  Talat Mehmood , Mohd Rafi, Asha Bhonsle, Lata Mangeshkar , Manna Dey because their ghazal singing was a part of Hindi Films and they had not created any separate space and ecosystem for Ghazals. 

But what is the scenario now? No craze to listen to new Ghazal singers. I feel sad about the present situation. 

Why this has happened , needs honest introspection on the part of new breed of Ghazal Singers. New singers came into  the field to reap the crop and to become instant celebrity, they did not work on developing their own style, creating/picking up and experimenting with contemporary writing as well as music, soon they went into oblivion or remained in the field just making small money just copy-cat  famous numbers by my friend Jagjit Singh . In fact, there is a large chunk of ghazal listeners waiting for real talent with originality in gayki , poetry and of course experimentation with music. 

Any hope ? 

My mashvara to the new talented ghazal singers :

औरों के हुनर को सराह ज़रूर

आँख मूँद के  उसकी नक़ल न कर 

जो छुपा है तेरे ही  भीतर 

ज़रा उसको भी ला निकाल  कर  

#chandandas #vatsalamehra  #chandandas #talataziz #vijaysudha #ghanshyamvasvani