New Delhi: At a poetry gathering in Allahabad, a young Shubha Mudgal was unexpectedly asked to sing a famous ghazal by Faiz Ahmad Faiz. When Faiz, who was performing, heard her sing, he signed the ghazal Mudgal had scribbled on a piece of paper, and dedicated it to her—forever linking her with the iconic rendition.
Faiz called Mudgal after she finished singing Shaam-e-Firaaq Ab Na Pooch, probing her about the contents of her clasped hand. Mudgal handed him a crumpled paper with the lyrics scrawled hastily in Devanagari. The poet examined it and remarked, “You didn’t write in Urdu.” She admitted to him that the Nastaliq script was alien to her.
Faiz then replied: “Talafuz toh tumhara theek tha. Lo, aaj se ye ghazal tumhare naam (Your pronunciation was perfect. From today, this ghazal is yours).”
Shaped by struggle, triumph and music, singer-composer Shubha Mudgal recently engaged in an insightful dialogue with author Sujata Prasad and the designer and theatre artiste Oroon Das at India International Centre in New Delhi. With a career spanning over three decades, Mudgal’s voice resonates across generations, defined by a rare fusion of tradition and innovation.
“I’m under no illusion about my ability to sing or about my so-called granniedom, but I think it’s the magic of the music that really speaks to people,” said Mudgal.
At the event, Mudgal reacquainted the audience with her 2019 book Looking for Miss Sargam, which features fictional short stories set in the Indian music scene. Responding to a question about her identity as a classical musician, particularly in light of her mainstream work, she said: “Some question if I’m a classical musician because of songs like Ab ke Sawan [1999]. That’s fine. I’ve always asked myself, ‘Do I really want to sing this?’ I don’t follow trends; there’s no guarantee of what will be popular.”
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Music, Meera, and more
Born into a family of academics, Shubha Mudgal was surrounded by poetry from an early age. Her parents were English literature professors at Allahabad University, and her father had a deep love for Urdu poetry. This environment shaped her artistic sensibilities, with influences like Firaq Gorakhpuri and Mahadevi Verma guiding her.
She recalled how her guru, Mahadevi Verma, enriched her musical journey: “She would call me on the landline and say, ‘Shubha, quickly write this down. I just remembered two or three beautiful couplets about love’”.
Emphasising the importance of literary richness in music, she added: “Khayal is often seen as prioritising Ragdari, Lahkari, or Taal over sahitya. But for me, I’ve never been able to say I don’t care about the lyrics or the poetry I’m singing or what sahitya I’m singing.”
As she continued to grow as an artist, Shubha’s appreciation for the universality of music led her to explore various genres and languages. One such example is her rendition of Bengali philosopher Lalon Fakir’s poetry.
She sang a few lines of the poem ‘Lalon’, filling the room with long, sustained melodic notes. Audience members swayed their hands in harmony with her notes, their faces glowing with wide smiles.
Lalon bole zater ki roop
Dekhlam na ei nozore
Shob loke koy Lalon ki zaat shongshare
(Lalon says, what form does caste take?
I haven’t seen it with my own eyes.
Everyone asks, what caste does Lalon belong to in this world?)
“It’s so important to remind ourselves when elections are being won on the basis of caste. For centuries, saint-poets have been telling us to rise above it,” Mudgal said after her rendition.
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Unseen stories
One of Shubha Mudgal’s most significant musical projects was Unorthodoxies: Reimagining Meera (2005). A multilingual album Mudgal released in collaboration with author Kiran Nagarkar and musician Aneesh Pradhan (a tabla player, scholar and Mudgal’s husband), it blended prose, poetry, and music to offer a fresh take on 16th-century Hindu poet-mystic Meerabai’s story.
“I grew up trying to copy the beautiful compositions Hridaynath Mangeshkar ji made for Lata ji in Chala Wahi Des. Lata ji sings Meera so convincingly that I was completely bowled over. As a teenager, I tried my best to mimic every twist and turn, but my voice was nothing like hers.” Mudgal said.
The power of Meera’s words stayed with her. As Mudgal grew older, she found herself increasingly disconnected from the idealised, serene image of Meera often portrayed in art—a perfect goddess in white or saffron, the picture of bliss.
To Mudgal, Meera was not a passive figure but a fearless woman who would sing and dance in public despite the judgement she faced. “Her cry of pain couldn’t be pretty. It had to be real, moving, unvarnished. That was my Meera,” she said.
The project took shape when Mudgal discovered Kiran Nagarkar’s Cuckold (Nagarkar won the Sahitya Akademi award in 2000 for this book) in a bookstore, a 1997 novel that looked at Meerabai from a unique perspective. Mudgal, Nagarkar, and Pradhan united for a recording project that beautifully intertwined Meera’s life story with Nagarkar’s prose from his book. “Aneesh insisted it shouldn’t feel like two artists taking turns. It had to melt together, like a single, flowing narrative. So, I worked on a sound design, and we decided it was better suited as a recording project,” said Mudgal.
The result was an innovative, seamless musical narrative – and a Meera who was raw, intense, and unpolished.
Mudgal recalled another unforgettable experience from her time working on Mira Nair’s 1996 film Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love. At a studio in Delhi’s South Extension, Nair would show her clips from the film and request specific musical responses. For example, Nair described her actors walking through big arches into grand garden spaces and asked Mudgal to give appropriate music for the scene.
However, the project left Shubha with a bitter lesson in copyright. When the CD was delivered, it read, “Music and Composition: Michael Dana”. Despite his absence during the session, Dana took the credit for Mudgal’s voice and musical interpretations. Even renowned artists such as Vilayat Khan and Aruna Kalle, who contributed their talents to the film’s score, had their work credited to Dana, Mudgal recalled.
“Vilayat Khan had played Bhairavi in it. Is Michael Dana going to teach him that composition, too?”
Despite the challenges she faced, Mudgal’s popularity continued to grow, transcending generations and remaining unmatched. Oroon Das recalled a moment at a fundraiser concert at The Piano Man Jazz Club that perfectly captured the singer-composer’s timeless appeal. The venue, despite a heavy shower, unexpectedly filled up with a cross-generational crowd that was eager to see Mudgal perform alongside younger bands. Das, struck by the diverse demographic, had to stand up just to catch a glimpse of her.
For Shubha Mudgal, true magic lies in the connection between the music and its listeners. The respect and warmth of fans consistently reinforces this belief for her, she said.
“Now, with my grey hair, everyone starts touching my feet. Imagine, through one song, what it has done for me. The music is being made, and I am the voice behind Ab Ke Sawan Aise Barse. But there were so many others, those who wrote, composed, and produced it, that made it what it is,” she said.
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)
Thank you Sakshi ji for this piece but I’m sorry if I didn’t indicate this clearly about my rendition of Faiz Sahab’s ghazal. What I said was that Faiz saheb was kind enough to indulge a young girl rendering his ghazal by autographing the crumpled piece of paper on which I had hastily scribbled the ghazal to be able to sing it. He had not named it after me !