8th February 80th birth anniversary of ghazal maestro Jagjit Singh

Monday 8th February  marks 80th birth anniversary of ghazal maestro Jagjit Singh. The third one in his family of eleven siblings, Jagjit was born as Jagmohan Singh in Sriganganagar (Rajasthan) to a government employee. He first did a public performance when he was in standard nine, at a Kavi Sammelan. He chose a philosophical, melancholy and haunting poem for the occasion.In his entire journey Jagjit has more than 40 private albums to his credit and has lent his voice for innumerable Bollywood films, impressing and enchanting an entire generation of music lovers. His songs like Hontho Se Chhoo Lo Tum, Tum Ko Dekha and Meri Zindagi Kisi Aur Ki Mere Naam Ka Koi Aur Hai, are evergreen favourites. Unfortunately, when he was at peak of his career, Jagjit faced the worst setback of his life. In 1990, he lost their only son Vivek, who was only 18-year-old in a car accident. His wife Chitra Singh quit professional singing. Contrary to the image of ghazals and ghazal-singers, Jagjit sang some Punjabi tappe (folk style from Punjab), pretty fast numbers and often joked in between his ghazals during his music concerts. On October 10, 2011, he died leaving thousands of fans grieving.

Actually named Jagmohan at birth, Jagjit Singhs devout Sikh father rechristened him Jagjit on the advice of his Namdhari guru.During his college days, he was a brilliant hockey player and was part of his college team. However, he pulled out of the team when he realized that music was his real calling.. As per an Outlook report, Beyond Time was the first album which had an Indian musician recording a purely digital CD album in 1980. The ghazal singer copied and cheated in his college exams. Jagjit has talked about it and revealed how even the invigilator helped him copy from notes during an examination for history paper.He helped Kumar Sanu get his first break with Kalyanji Anandji.Jagjit Singh sang many ghazals and also had a vibrant, rich non-filmy discography to his credit. 

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