You mesmerised, you captivated and you endlessly charmed. Your voice was the most steadfast companion through days and nights in the growing up years – you had a song for every sigh and pang of love and romance, you breathed meaning into the lyrics so effortlessly that you brought the words and moments alive. Listening to you gave solace to my tender mind in the first flush of crushes and love, and through the years you explained in that rich, golden, unmatched voice, the euphoria, the romance and the sadness, like you were sitting next to me and doing so. Listening to you, I have cried and smiled and understood.
“payal chhanka ke tum aa jao jeevan mein” is what my first love said to me, and to me, it was an overflow of the cup of ultimate romance because ‘hothon se chhoo lo tum” was your song, my mostest favourite, and nobody could have ever put romance and tenderness into it the way you did.
And then as I grew up into deeper understanding, you so beautifully articulated that all that you sang in the ‘ghazal’ is actually a longing for a merger with the divine. Then re-listening to “koi paas aaya sawere sawere mujhe aazmaaya sawere sawere”, I was able to relate to the sublimity and ecstasy of romance with divinity. And I so easily understood it all because you sang so.
Your songs will be mine forever, and for me, you live on through them every moment, like you do for the millions whose lives you musically enriched.
Sleep sweet prince forever, on the softest petals, and let the angels sing their sweetest songs of peace and bliss for you.
R.I.P. Maestro, the one and only Jagjit Singh.
