No reason to be Udhas

"Ghazal is by far the best possible combination of poetry, classical music and melody since four centuries," says Pankaj Udhas. But the maestro says that it's not been an easy journey to make the genre as popular commercially as it is today. Pankaj talks to CS about his struggle as a ghazal singer, K L Saigal, and his last name:


Who: Pankaj Udhas
What: Talks about his struggle to make ghazals popular
Where: At his residence

Crossing hurdles
Not many people know that my first career break was as a playback singer for a film, Kaamna, in 1971. Back then, playback singing was the most prestigious thing to do where music was concerned. I remember Amin Sayani introducing me as the future of playback on radio. It was definitely encouraging, but I also knew that it was the era of masters like Mohammad Rafi, Kishore Kumar, R D Burman. Survival in this fierce competition wasn't an easy task. It was during this time that I felt the urge to do something for ghazal as a genre. But in those days, no one was ready to take a chance with a new comer. Recording an album then was like appearing for CAT where 95 per cent people don't get through. It took me 10 long years to cut my first LP (long-play) record.u00a0u00a0

Master stroke
Kundan Lal Saigal aka K L Saigal was the first person to record ghazals in 1932 for Ghalib. Saigalsaab's contribution towards ghazals has been immense. In the span of 15 years, he recorded around 80 ghazals, which was a big thing then. Recently, my elder daughter, Nayab, came into my room humming Saigalsaab's song Main Kya Jaano Jadu Hai. I was surprised to hear it and asked her where she'd heard it. Nayab said that she has been doing a research on Saigalsaab and now the song was stuck in her head. Imagine the persons' persona that his work even appeals to today's generation.

But then, it's not just the younger generation's fault that they don't appreciate non-film music. Earlier, music channels used to play album and individual artists songs, but today all you hear are Bollywood numbers. There is no breathing or growing space for other genres of music. Then where will the popularity come from? Television too has disowned all other genres of music.

Udas, not really
My last name, Udhas, is often miss pronounced as Udas as people happily connect it to my field of work. It would irk me at the start, but I don't feel bad about it anymore. Over the years, I have received so much love, recognition and respect from my audience that such things hardly matter. Recently, I was performing at Johannesburg in South Africa, and as soon as I entered the auditorium, some three thousand people in the audience were standing to welcome me. God is great to have given me so much love.