Jagjit Singh’s 72nd birthday: Google makes it special with Doodle

Zeenews Bureau New Delhi: ‘Ghazal King’ Jagjit Singh has been honoured by Google on his 72nd birth anniversary with a doodle depicting him playing harmonium. Padma Bhushan Jagjit Singh was regarded as one of the greatest singers India has ever produced. He belonged to the Agra Gharana of Indian classical music. Born in Sri Ganganagar in Rajasthan, his parents wanted him to be an IAS officer but music was his calling. He left his studies prematurely at the Kurukshetra University and went to Mumbai in 1965 to try his luck as a singer/composer. He has sung in Punjabi, Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Gujarati, Sindhi and Nepali languages. The ghazal maestro gained acclaim together with his wife, another renowned Indian ghazal singer Chitra Singh, in the 1970s and 1980s, as the first ever successful duo act (husband-wife) in the history of recorded Indian music. His popular ghazals include, Meri zindagi kisi aur ki, mere naam ka koi aur hai, Apni marzi se kahan apne safar ke hum hain, Wo jo hum mein tumme qaraar tha, Patta-patta boota-boota haal hamaara jaane hai, Hoshwalo ko khabar, etc. He has also sung for popular movies like Sarfarosh and Tarqeeb. Jagjit Singh continues to be popular with his fans more than a year after his death as the singer has topped the list of most searched ghazal singers online. According to Google Search Trends, Jagjit Singh, tops the list of popular singers in this genre. In India, netizens of Ludhiana, Bhopal and Indore search the most for queries related to Singh. Globally, the Indian subcontinent searches the highest for Jagjit Singh, followed by Pakistan, Bangladesh and United Arab Emirates. Jagjit Singh died on 10 October 2011 at Lilavati Hospital, in Mumbai.