The couple came together for a scintillating show commemorating the silver jubilee of their teaming up when their new album Aksar was released.
“Dil dhundta hai phir wahi fursat ke raat din,” the dulcet-voiced singer-composer and ace guitarist Bhupinder Singh laughs, when asked to comment on today’s Indian music on the ocassion of his completing 25 years as a singer with wife Mitali. “There was time when your heart leapt into dance, today we are left with music that only makes some people want to shake a leg for a few days.”
The couple came together for a scintillating show commemorating the silver jubilee of their teaming up when their new album ‘Aksar’ was released. The music is composed by the Bhupinder Singh himself while his wife Mitali joins him to lend voice to Gulzar’s timeless poetry. The music has been arranged by Uttam Singh of Dil Toh Pagal Hai fame.
This ghazal and playback singer began with All India Radio, Delhi. In 1964, music director Madan Mohan heard him on radio and called him to Bombay to sing Hoke Majboor Mujhe Usne Bulaya Hoga with Mohammad Rafi in Chetan Anand’s Haqeeqat. Later, Bhupinder joined Rahul Dev Burman’s orchestra. It was Burman, who made him sing Beeti Na Beetai Raina and Mitwa Bole Meethe Bain in Gulzar’s Parichay (1972). This brought him both fame and recognition as a singer and he became staple in Gulzar movies.
Numbers like Dil Dhoondta Hai, Naam Gum Jayega and Ek Akela Is Shaher Mein are still some of the most requested on radio.
While Bhupinder’s first private albums was released in 1968, in a decade he introduced the Spanish guitar, bass and drums to the ghazal genre. Gulzar had penned the lyrics for his third Woh Jo Shair Tha (1980). In the mid-1980s, Bhupinder married a Bangladeshi singer Mitali and moved away from playback singing.
“The kind of movies and themes meant that there was no scope soft soulful music and I preferred to move away,” he recounts.
Together, they performed at several ghazal concerts and live performances.
Mitali Singh learnt music from a very young age and sang for the Bangla film industry and was a recipient of the national award in Bangladesh. She continued her postgraduation in music at the MS University with a gold medal. Characterised by slower, deeper style of geet and ghazals, her renditions she was already performing in Hindi, Urdu and Gujarati TV programmes.
“Though there are fewer audiences who want to listen to music which will bring them peace. For their sake we should go on taking our musical legacy onwards,” she told DNA.
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