On October 10, 2011 with the demise of Jagjit Singh India lost a voice that had thrilled millions across the world by its sheer magic. Born on February 08, 1941 in Sri Ganganagar, Jagjit had earned a Master's degree in history from Kurukshetra university. However, he was wedded to music. He had shown promise in music from a very early age.

Jagjit embarked in an era ruled by ghazal maestros like Begum Akhtar, Mehendi Hasan and Talak Mohmmad, yet he created ripples when he mixed ghazals with geet, making his music more melodious. Besides Urdu, he sang in Punjabi, Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Sindhi and even in Nepali. He along with his wife Chitra regaled the whole nation. His duets with melody queen Lata Mangeskar had a turning point in his singine career. He sang the famous ghazals of Mirza Ghalib, Firaq Gorahkpuri, Faiz Ratlami and many others. He was extremely popular across our border in Pakistan to prove that music has no boundary. In many TV programmes he has encouraged innumerable young Ghazal singers.

His emminence rose high for he composed ghazals himself, sang in different occasions and in films. He made two albums for the songs composed by former PM Atal Bihari Bajpai. On May 10, 2007 he sang, 'Lagta nahin hai dil..', the famous composition of Bahadur Shah Jazar, the last Moghul King in the Central Hall of Parliament on the occasion of the celebration of the first war of India's Independence (1857) in the presence of President Abdul Kalam, PM Manmohan Singh, Vice President and all other special invitees. His last concert was on September 20, 2011 in Indian Public School, Dehradun.

He was honoured by many national and international awards including Padma Bhushan in 2006. Jagjit's passing away is a national loss. It is no exaggeration to say the his active life over the past 50 years is also the half century's history of Ghazal. We in India and Pakistan are deeply shocked and condols the death of a worthy son of India and shares sorrow with his bereaved family. May his soul rest in peace.