When I wrote this piece two years ago, Mehdi was already ill and bed-ridden. Writing it I dreaded the day when the Emperor of Ghazals will sing no more. Today is that day. It’s a shame that I am recycling this tribute instead of writing a new one. Those who know me know what his ghazals mean to me and they would expect me to write something new. My apologies to them. But the only way I can explain the reason for re-blogging this is a couplet by Faiz which he wrote in another context: “Duniya ne teri yaad se begana kar diya, tujhse bhi dil fareb hain ghum rozghar ke…”
Mehdi Hassan first revealed himself to me through one of my friends in college. I may have heard him before as a kid at home but my fascination with the Emperor of Ghazals began one lazy late afternoon in my first year in college.
We were through with our daily dose of chai, samosas, cigarettes, girls, sex and politics it seemed. There was a sudden hush at our table in the canteen.
Abhishek believed that the best way to fill such a silence was through songs, especially ghazals. So he began humming a Jagjit Singh number. Soon it turned into a mehfil and slowly those who thought ghazals were boring left leaving only a few of us at the table.
It was then that Abhishek began singing “Ranjish he sahi” — one of Mehdi’s most popular ghazals that even those with passing acquaintance with his ghazals would know.
But lightning…
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