Hariharan- a versatile singer, who feels ghazals are his forte

India News Newsdesk

Melbourne, March 28 Hariharan’s name evokes memories of his soulful songs across genres. He has proved himself to be wellverse with a diversity of genres, from classical, semi-classical to fusion. The effortless ease with which he unleashes the best of songs in his mellifluous voice, reverberates in the hearts of his audience. But his tryst with ghazal has been the most interesting one, and very much close to his heart, as he has told many of his interviewers. He feels the charm of ghazal is undeniable. While learning khayalgayaki from Ustad Ghulam Mustafa Khan saab, Hariharan was inspired by Pakistani legendary singer Mehdi Hasan’s style of music around 1976. His natural urge was to follow his style because he used the khayalang beautifully in his singing. And in one of the interviews done in 2022 with The Times of India, Hariharan said that Mehdi Hasan became his ruhaani guru then, and he started learning from him in 1985. In fact, Hariharan reminisces, that Mehdi Hasan taught him a lot of things, and being conversational in style, listening to Mehdi would feel as if he was only singing for you. Praising Mehdi HasanHariharan says the maestro was like a university, and he learned a lot from him in terms of the gharana and his style. And it is not just about singing alone. Hariharan paid attention to every detail, language in particular, that ought to be impeccable if he were to scale the heights of ghazal singing. That’s why he learned Urdu for one year before he sang for Jaidev, a great music composer of yesteryears. In one of the newspaper interviews published earlier, Hariharan says that Jaidev was his friend philosopher and guide. He sang his first Hindi song for Jaidev, which was the ghazal Ajeeb sane ha mujh par ghuzar gaya yaaron/ Maine apne saaye se kal raat darr gaya yaaron for Muzaffar Ali’s film Gaman. Since the Urdu lyrics by Shahryar were complex, Jaidev made him learn Urdu for one full year. Hariharan feels that one year of Urdu coaching has made him a professional ghazal singer. Though he is one of the most famous classical singers of his time and continues to entertain audiences, he is not averse to contemporary music, and feels it cannot be avoided. He is of the view that the music of today has followers, and hence, whatever genre it belongs to, it will remain. However, he believes that while performing on stage, there ought to be a balance between all forms of music. All he asks for is that the music, whatever it may be, should have a soul. He opines that if the rhythm of traditional Indian music mixes well with the beats of the contemporary, then the charm, timelessness and beauty of the oldsong and music shall remain undisturbed. Though originally he was trained in Carnatic as well as Hindustani classical music, Hariharan, in collaboration with Leslie Lewis, created his pop-rock bandColonial Cousinssuccessfully in the ’90s. For Bollywood he has given outstanding songs like ‘Tu hi re’ (Bombay; 1995) and ‘Baahon ke darmiyan’ (Khamoshi: The Musical; 1996). However, he has repeatedly maintained that his forte is ghazals.