Asha renders six Suresh Bhat ghazals to western tunes

Nagpur: An effort which will be a delight to all Suresh Bhat fans, music director, singer and composer Mandar Agashe has brought out an album ‘82pop’ featuring six of Bhat’s never-heard-before ghazals sung by Asha Bhosle. The album has been titled to reflect the age of the versatile singer. Bhat, who hailed from Nagpur, had most of his poetry composed by Pt Hridaynath Mangeshkar.
“I had met Sureshji at Pune 20 years back. He had then told me that he wanted my style of music for his ghazals. He had this desire that his ghazals should be sung by Asha Bhosle in pop genre,” says Agashe, a software engineer who composes and sings Indipop in Hindi, English and Marathi. Bhat had given Agashe 10 of his poems. Agashe himself has a strong city connect as his mother belonged to Nagpur. Way back in 1997, he had brought out a Marathi album tilted Achanak that contained four of them.
“The ghazals are basically love songs and carry different emotions. This has made it possible for me to use varied genres like pop, reggae, blues, rock, and ballad. The songs were written a long time back,” Agashe says. “A year back, I composed some tunes and made Ashaji hear them. She called me back after some months and said she had been humming them for a long time and was ready to record the songs,” adds the composer. “It took us just one week to record the entire album. At the age of 82, Ashaji sings with the same youthfulness and passion that define her,” he says.
The ghazals that feature in the album include ‘Oth’, ‘Aasavanche’, ‘Barsun’, ‘Ha Asa Chandra’, ‘Toran’, and ‘Divas He Jaati Kase’ and have been composed in western style. “I have known Sureshji for a long time. His poetry was very powerful and there was a lot of depth in his words. Through this album, I relive those memories and bring to his fans the strength of his poetry,” says Agashe. The music arrangement of the album has been done by Derek Julian, while Ravi Vedant has arranged the drums and percussions.
‘82pop’ also provides an opportunity for Bhat fans to participate in a contest to make a music video of any or all songs in one album. “The songs can be downloaded from our website www.82pop.in. The contestant can shoot a video with professional camera or mobile phone camera and upload the same or e-mail the link to [email protected]. The last date of submission is June 8. Asha Bhosle and Agashe will choose a video that will be released as official video for that song,” informs Manoj Tatwadi of ICT Media that is promoting the album.