Forget Me Not: Reminiscences Of A Maestro I had fallen in love for the first time when I was 13 years old with a junior in school (let’s call her “J”). As it happens with first love, where you tend to worship the beloved, it had happened with me as well. Since it was not reciprocated then, the intensity grew with time. I would do anything to get any information on her. Years later when we came to end of class X, we used to write in those slam books, in anticipation that we would soon be leaving school, what we like or dislike. On one such occasion, I had come across J’s profile where she had mentioned that her favourite song was “Kahin Kahin Se Har Chehra Tum Jaisa Lagta Hai” from Jagjit Singh’s album “Dil Kahin Hosh Kahin”. Though I may have vaguely seen the video of the song before, it became a mission to find the song and listen to it repeatedly. And quite expectedly it became a favourite as well. This was the first time I became aware of Jagjit Singh and Ghazals, in a major way. Before that I had listened and loved “Hoshwalon Ko Khabar Kya” from the film “Sarfarosh”, but at that time it passed more as a movie song rather than a Ghazal. A year later, Jagjit Singh’s album “Forget Me Not” had released. J was in her 10th standard and was planning to leave the school after that. Since it was a boarding school even self studies happened in classrooms. So we used to keep our books permanently in classrooms. In one of those clandestine searches through her notebooks, I had found a cut out of “Forget Me Not” which she had herself written. I stole it of course and carefully kept it for few more years till I lost it, like the love for her. Few months later, a favourite teacher of mine was leaving the school to join Central Bureau of Investigation and we decided to give him a parting gift. I insisted that we give the cassette of Jagjit Singh’s “Forget Me Not” without slightest idea if the teacher liked Ghazals. A year later, I came to Delhi when I got real exposure to ghazals through recently established private FM channels. At night the programs were designed in such a way that all the stations either played classics or ghazals and the latter genre was dominated by Jagjit Singh. A year later I joined the college, where flashback part of “Hoshwalon Ko Khabar Kya” was picturised. I fell in love again. Though the girl was different, my love was in continuity of the previous one. Like upgrading yourself to the latest iPhone. (None of the girls are friends anymore, so I need not fear retribution for such crude comparison). Love was more intense this time, so the heartbreaks. Jagjit’s ghazals became a refuge for a restless soul, a bleeding heart. The ghazals I listened during that period of time are so deeply ingrained in my mind that every time I listen to any of them, the memories come rushing. Years later, I was in Calcutta for the final years of my education. I had a laptop and hence had unlimited access to his songs. I was no longer in love except reminiscing the old one (Probably God’s iPhone upgradation was on hold and still is ;)). At night I would put Jagjit Singh on my itunes and go to sleep, a practice I still follow. Ghazals have always been very cathartic to all the pain I went through and Jagjit Singh defined it for me. I have heard there are other Ghazal singers who are better and more authentic than him but I have yet not been able to go beyond him to make a statement or judgment. His demise is as much a personal loss as a public one. But he shall live on, in his timeless ghazals, always bringing back those amazing memories of wonder years