Jagjit Singh making comeback to film music

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">KOLKATA: Having charmed the international audience with his soul-stirring music in the just-released English film <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Leela</span>, ghazal maestro Jagjit Singh seems poised to make a grand comeback to film music with at least four more projects lined up.<br />"After the success of the music of Somnath Sen''s <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Leela</span>, four more diaspora film-makers have approached me to score music for their films.My kind of music is getting more recognition by music lovers beyond the Indian borders," Singh said in an interview here.<br />The Dimple Kapadia-Vinod Khanna-Deepti Naval starrer, which made an impact with its soft numbers punctuated by the strumming guitar in that typical Jagjit Singh style, was his first film venture in more than a decade and a half.<br />And after its good draw at the box office, Singh has been flooded with offers from overseas Indian producers making English films for a global audience.<br />"Deepak Nayar, the producer of <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Bend It Like Beckham</span>, has asked me to score music for his new film and I have already begun work on it. Three more offers are also lined up and I am looking forward to them," Singh said.<br />What had kept the maker of unforgettable music in films like <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Saath Saath</span> and <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Arth</span> away from the glamour world of celluloid this long?<br />"I did not score film music since no one wanted my kind of music, no one ever came to me with an offer," the talented singer replied with candour. <br /><br />Singh said he was anguished by the ''meaningless music'' that was being churned out from Bollywood today.<br />"Tell me, do they make melodious music in Hindi films any more? Barring a few, our mainstream cinema hardly has any serious themes for any serious music," he said.<br />Singh said Indian film-makers were not willing to experiment with music at all since nobody wanted to take a risk on what is considered the most important selling proposition of a movie.<br />"After all, you cannot expect commercial film-makers to use something which will not go down well with the masses," he said.<br />International Indian film-makers, on ther other hand, had come of age and were making meaningful cinema, Singh said adding this was the niche market where ghazals and Indian semi-classical numbers could fit in well.<br />"I am pretty hopeful with this new genre of film-making. This is where Indian music in its many forms can be showcased to the world," he said.<br />Naming his choice of singers who could strike the right note with these new-wave films, Singh said Hariharan, Sonu Nigam, Babul Supriyo, Shreya Ghoshal and Alka Yagnik had the right orientation to meet the needs of such serious cinema. </div> </div>