Ghazal-soaked evenings began to fall in a cascade over the Malabar skies in the mid 1900s. Awash in the iridescent hues of the oriental strain, the streets and durbars of Kozhikode floated in the twilight of mehfils. The migrant population of North Indian musicians – a good many of them penniless worshippers of the muse – had helped the exotic music cast its magic over the land and its concentration of Muslim populace. The Urdu lyrics broke linguistic barriers with the Quran-reading while the ethereal romance ingrained in the tunes tugged at all hearts alike. The first generation of migrant singers lived amidst the music-loving people of Kozhikode for the sheer gratification they received as musicians. In a land where people spoke an alien tongue, they simply communicated in the language of the heart – singing of eternal and undying love. “Mangeshkar Rao was one of the earliest musicians to camp in the streets of Kozhikode,” says author and music critic Ravi Menon. “He was known for his excellent vocal abilities and remarkable skill in playing many North Indian musical instruments. There were even artists who popularised exotic instruments such as Jal tarang in the Northern districts of Kerala. Sadly, most of them led miserable lives and died on the streets like Mangeshkar Rao himself.”Dileep Chand Jogi is another singer from the era who continues to live in many an old heart. Vincent Master played the harmonium and the sitar to the listening soul of Kozhikode and taught the basics of ghazal to many. And among his most devout students was Mohammad Sabir Baburaj. Born to the iconic ghazal singer Jan Muhammed Khan, the nuances of the genre were perhaps infused in his blood. Jan Muhammed made his first trip to the South on invitation from the wealthy music aficionados of Kozhikode. The heady heights to which soirees sore on many star-lit nights saw connoisseurs betting to outdo durbars held in each other’s mansions. Jan was one such prized trump card introduced to intimidate the then reigning lord, Gul Muhammed. Their supposed rivalry and attempts to outshine one another gifted many a musically-charged night to the music-lovers of the town. Gul, who married a Malayali Muslim woman, later settled in the Thrissur-Malappuram border of Chavakkad. One of his sons, K G Sathar, was a familiar voice in ghazal gatherings for a while. Jan married and later abandoned his Malayali wife, but had borne her the prodigy son who had to strain over the rumble of moving trains to be heard by the passengers inside who would sometimes drop a few pennies in his outstretched hands. Many years later, his compositions took the toddler film music industry of Malayalam by storm with their fresh, ghazal-inspired tunes. He introduced Yamuna Kalyani (Kanmani neeyen karam...), Bheemplaas (Thamasamenthe varuvan...) and other typical ragas of the genre to give Malayalam romantic songs an effervescence of a new kind. His songs paved way for a mass appeal in Malayali hearts for the soothing melody of ghazals. A T Ummer, with his soft romantic songs, touched it up and the doors were opened wide for the entry of professional ghazal singers. The ghazal boom of the 1970s, scripted almost single-handedly by Jagjit Singh and followed up by Pankaj Udhas and Hariharan, set the most alluring stage for upcoming musicians. “It remains to be proved whether Malayalam language can carry the magic of Urdu lyrics which form the backbone of ghazals,” says Ravi Menon. “Singers such as Umbayi, Anil Das, Jithesh Sundaram, whose album has Anoop Jalota and Pankaj Udhas rendering Malayalam ghazals, Dr Shakeel, Ramesh Narayan, Raghu Kumar, who composed songs for ‘Maya Mayooram’, Shahabaz Aman and Nisa, have experimented with adaptations in Malayalam though the genre remains lacking in the lyrical richness of the original,” he says. Ramesh Narayan’s album ‘Mridu Malhar’ had attempted to abide by the rules of the rhyming couplet or ‘matla’ that begins a ‘Sher’ (poem) in Persian, Urdu and Hindi ghazals. Upcoming singer-composer Shahabaz Aman had commented in a recent interview that a conference of Malayali musicians and poets can perhaps lend a solid form and structure to the genre. The lovelorn romantic can never cease to exist, nor cease to sing. And what music, if not the ghazal, can capture the catch in the throat that comes from memories of a love lost on the pavements of life!
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