Bollywood

BOLLYWOOD: ECHOES OF JASPAL SINGH’S VOICE

by Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri March 25 2025, 12:00 am Estimated Reading Time: 11 mins, 20 secs

Jaspal Singh's songs from the 1970s still stir the soul. Though his playback career was brief, his mellifluous voice left an indelible mark on Hindi film music lovers, writes Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri.

Jaspal Singh, often called the Dorian Gray of Hindi film playback voices, remains a beloved yet under-celebrated gem of the 1970s. Best known for timeless songs like Geet Gaata Chal and Kaun Disha Mein Le Ke Chala Re, Singh's soulful, pastoral voice brought to life the music of Rajshri films and composer Ravindra Jain. Despite a short-lived career, his evocative vocals captured the spirit of rural India and carved a special place in the hearts of music lovers. This tribute explores his journey, the uniqueness of his voice, and why his songs continue to resonate even after five decades.

Jaspal Singh: The Dorian Gray of Hindi Film Playback Voices

The year 1975 has been justly feted as the year that Hindi cinema surpassed itself in terms of the range of films produced. However, most conversations on this zero-in on the usual suspects – the year of Deewaar and Sholay. We forget that as far as the subject matter was concerned, neither film broke any new ground. Deewaar, for all its brilliance, was after all a creative reimagining of films like Aurat, Mother India and Ganga Jumna. Sholay’s reputation has suffered in recent years what with the plethora of videos on YouTube, some of which list as many has 50 sequences and more that were shamelessly ripped off from spaghetti westerns. Of course, this was also the year Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Gulzar had some of their most successful films in Aandhi, Mausam, Mili and Chupke Chupke. This was also the year of films as diverse as Nishant and Jai Santoshi Maa. As also the year of Joginder’s cult hit Ranga Khush, which deserves a write-up of its own.

Almost all these celebrations invariably miss out on two musical accomplishments of 1975. Both omissions are glaring because these two films constitute the best musicals in the annals of Hindi cinema, both were stupendous hits, both gave us new singing voices – voices that were distinctly different to those ruling the airwaves at the time – who delivered their best in these films. Unfortunately, both these singers failed to make good on the promise of their breakout songs in 1975.

One of the biggest ‘discoveries’ of the year was singer Jaspal Singh. He of the life-affirming voice. A voice that scaled the high notes like few others in Hindi cinema. A voice that brought to life the vast open spaces of the earth, the swaying fields, a voice that held in it the immensity of the sky, and conveyed the gentle ripple of a river. When he sang, ‘Oonche oonche parbaton ki baadlon se hodhe’, you could visualize mountain tops nestling in the clouds, and his rendition of the line ‘nadiyan bahe re saare bandhano ko tod’ made you imagine a river that brooks no obstacles. There have been few Hindi film singers as full-throated as Jaspal Singh. There was in his voice a timber that will be familiar with listeners who have heard the Bengali folk legend Nirmalendu Chowdhury.

Bitten by the Hindi Film Music Bug

Jaspal Singh had decided early on that all he wanted to do was be a playback singer. As he has mentioned in the only available interview with the singer, he had no interest in classical music or non-film music. Though he hailed from a well-to-do business family in Amritsar, and had completed his degree in law from Ghaziabad, he had set his heart on singing for films. When his elder sister shifted to Bombay after marriage, Jaspal followed her to the city. Impressed by his passion for singing, his brother-in-law even produced a film, Bandish (1968), in which composer Usha Khanna gave Jaspal his break as a singer. The film failed and the song, ‘Dekho logon yeh kaisa zamana’, shot on Brahmachari, created barely a ripple. Over the next few years, he would keep travelling between Amritsar and Bombay, trying to balance his father’s desire that he take up the family business and his own passion.

The late 1960s wasn’t the best of time for a new entrant in the playback arena to make his presence felt. Mohammed Rafi was at the top of his game with chartbusters in Teesri Manzil and Aadmi. He was the default playback for Dilip Kumar and Dev Anand, apart from Shammi Kapoor and Rajendra Kumar. Mukesh was the choice for Raj Kapoor and a lot of the other big stars like Manoj Kumar. Even singers as brilliant as Manna Dey and Mahendra Kapoor had to make do with leftovers most of the time. And come 1969, Kishore Kumar would sweep all competition with Aradhana, even as Shailendra became a sensation with Bobby.

Geet Gaata Chal (1975)

As such, it would take Jaspal Singh another seven years from his debut to make a mark. But when that happened, he became an overnight sensation. Geet Gata Chal exemplified the diversity of the year 1975. In a year and an era when taut city crime dramas like Deewaar, Dharmatma and Yaadon Ki Baaraat were fashionable, a time when R.D. Burman set the feet tapping with ‘Mehbooba Mehbooba’ and his songs in Jawani Diwani, Geet Gaata Chal went pastoral and folksy with a vengeance.   

Based on a story by Rabindranath Tagore (that had been filmed earlier as Atithi by Tapan Sinha), Rajshri Productions blazed a new trail with the rural ambience of Geet Gaata Chal – bringing alive, in the words of Ziya us Salam, ‘lush-green fields, unpaved roads, houses with lanterns and hand pumps, bullocks, which moved in harmony with the unhurried rhythm of life’. Fifty years on, much of this ode to a joint family with its ‘buas and mamis, chachas and kakas’ joining in to sing some of the best bhajans and chaupais in Hindi cinema, with nary a villain or vamp, seems dated and hokey. Though there is no denying the sheer innocence of the ambience.  

The film made overnight stars of its leads Sachin and Sarika, who had been popular child stars for close to a decade. However, it is for its music that Geet Gaata Chal has transcended its time. It remains one of the finest musicals of Hindi cinema with every song worth its weight in gold. Lyricist and composer Ravindra Jain had broken through only the year before with the chartbusting ‘Le jayenge le jayenge’ and ‘Ghungroo ki tarah’ in Chori Mera Kaam while delivering two delectable numbers in the Amitabh Bachchan-Nutan starrer Saudagar. But it is with Geet Gaata Chal that he came into his own. The next year he would bowl over Hindi film music lovers with Basu Chatterjee’s evergreen Chitchor.   

What was remarkable about Geet Gaata Chal was that the composer eschewed all the big singers of the time. Though both Rafi and Kishore had a song each in the film, which became quite popular, with Kishore’s ‘Bachpan har gham se begana hota hai’ one of the finest odes to childhood, it is Jaspal Singh who emerged as the new singing sensation in the wake of Geet Gaata Chal.  

It is testimony to the singer’s ability that the title song has stood the test of time for fifty years now. Even today, listening to ‘Geet gaata chal o saathi…’ and ‘Dharti meri maata…’ evokes images of a verdant countryside like no other film song. I have often viewed them as the Hindi film song equivalent of John Denver’s ‘Country roads take me home’. Both songs also convey a philosophy of life (‘Kahaa se tu aayaa aur kahaa tujhe jaanaa hai / Khush hai wohi jo is baat se begaanaa hai) and the protagonist’s world view (Yun to meri ankhiyo ne dekhe kayi rang / Mann ko na bandha maine kisi ke bhi sang) with a simplicity that is hard not to be seduced by.

Though the lyrics and composition are equally worthy of mention, what really set the songs apart is Jaspal Singh’s full-throated yet mellifluous voice. The singer is equally at ease with the beautiful duet ‘Shyam teri bansi’ (with Aarti Mukherjee, who too has some of the best numbers of her career in the film), the bhajan ‘Mangal bhawan’ and the chaupais – which are even fifty years later the template for what we hear at the many jagarans today.   

Jab jab tu meray saamne aaye (Shyam Tere Kitne Naam, 1977)

The heroics of Geet Gaata Chal would be difficult to top, but two years later Jaspal rendered what to my mind is the best song of his career. Ravindra Jain’s composition is right up there with the finest in Hindi cinema while Anjaan’s words conjure in chaste Hindi a sensuality without losing out on the innocence of first love. It is again Jaspal Singh whose voice does the trick of balancing the unworldliness of childhood with the awakening of desire. It is as if he was born to give life to these words:

Bikhri alke jhuki jhuki palke / Aachal mein ye rup chupaye / Aise aaye chui mui si / Nazar se chhoo loon to kumhlaye // Kanchan sa tan kaliyon sa mann / Ang ang amrit chhalkaye / Jaata bachpan aata yowan / Jaane kaisi pyaas jagaye / Mann ka sayyam toota jaye

Saawan Ke Aane Do (1979) and Nadiya Ke Paar (1982)

It takes some doing to stand out in an album with six of Yesudas’s finest songs. Jaspal Singh managed just that with Saawan Ko Aane Do. An unheralded musical tour-de-force, Saawan Ko Aane Do boasts ten classic numbers composed by Raj Kamal (he would go on to compose for Chashme Baddoor). While the six songs rendered by Yesudas are veritable masterpieces, it is Jaspal Singh whose title number ‘Tumhe geeton mein dhaloonga, saawan ko aane do’ became the film’s most hummed song. To this day, it is this song that remains the film’s passport to posterity. No mean feat in an album that boasts at least half a dozen others that could qualify among the great Hindi film songs. There was also the earthy ‘Gagan yeh samjhe’ that harked back to the feel of Geet Gaata Chal.

Jaspal Singh delivered another chartbuster in Rajshri’s Nadiya Ke Paar – a simpler, less ostentatious version of Rajshri’s 1994 Hum Aapke Hain Kaun…! The folksy ‘Kaun disha mein leke chala re’ was instrumental in the film’s mega performance at the box office and proved the singer’s talismanic effect in facilitating a film’s commercial success.  

Lost in Anonymity

Unfortunately, this also marked Jaspal Singh’s last hurrah. As the 1980s wound down the pathway of appalling music, the melody of the Rajshri school lost steam and Jaspal Singh made no further headway as a playback singer. By this time the singer was too strongly associated with Rajshri and as Sachin’s playback voice. The pigeonholing did not help. When the banner and the actor fell out of favour with audience tastes in the mid-1980s, Jaspal Singh’s career came to a standstill. For some reason none of the major composers of the day – among them R.D. Burman, Laxmikant-Pyarelal, Kalyanji-Anandji and Rajesh Roshan – offered the singer any opportunities. Jaspal Singh also never got to sing for a marquee star, almost a sine qua non for a playback singer to succeed in Hindi cinema.

Knowledgeable music scholars I have spoken to mention his limitations as a singer, his lack of versatility and classical training. But that’s a specious argument. The 1980s saw rank bad singers like Shabbir Kumar and Mohammad Aziz making it big. None of them had the mellowness of Jaspal Singh’s voice, its ability to soothe, his range, and not even his ability to carry off a tune. Surely, he would have been a better bet any day. RD, for example, unleashed the perennially off-key Shabbir Kumar in Betaab – and I have often wondered what a singer like Japsal Singh would have brought to ‘Tumne di awaaz lo main aa gaya’, a melody that Shabbir Kumar ruined.  

However, it was not to be. And frankly one cannot imagine the singer of ‘Geet gaata chal o saathi’ being part of what went for music in films like Coolie and Mard, not to mention the other atrocities the decade heaped on us. The 1990s ushered in a new crop of singers and composers. As Udit Narayan, Kumar Sanu and Sonu Nigam became the voices of a new generation of stars, Jaspal Singh was lost to anonymity.  

It is remarkable, though, that a singer with just a handful of songs going back over five decades has such recall. For lovers of Hindi film music, the very mention of Japsal Singh is enough to bring back memories of a youthful voice that, as it crooned ‘Mann ka sayyam chhoota jaaye’, could make you let go of whatever holds you back. A voice that, as it beckoned ‘O bandhu re’, could conjure the munificence of the sun sparkling in the clear waters of a gently flowing river.