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KL Sahgal — ace folk singer of Himachal

IT was a great day for us when KL Sahgal, ace folk singer of Himachal Pradesh, came to our house. It was like the ‘mountain coming to Muhammad’.

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Shriniwas Joshi

IT was a great day for us when KL Sahgal, ace folk singer of Himachal Pradesh, came to our house. It was like the ‘mountain coming to Muhammad’. I was delighted to have such a personality in flesh and blood chatting with me in the sitting room; otherwise it used to be his melodic voice emanating from the small radio filling the spaces of our house. The folk music gives the people of Himachal Pradesh a means of forgetting the tough living conditions in the hills and even adds a charm to the mountainous region. The Himachal style of music has made significant contribution to enriching the Indian music. ‘Raga Pahari’ is as extensive and as majestic as the Himalayan ranges. It stemmed out from the folk music of the mountains before finding its roots in the rich Indian classical music repertoire. One finds the music of different flavours here that developed according to the local customs of the village life of people. Here, we have folksongs and hymns in the praise of the Lord — “Shiv Kailaso ke wasi”, tales of chivalry — “Kamna ri haar” or “Saamaa ri haar”, songs of damsels visiting fairs — “Baanthani chali jatre loga!”, beauty of a place —  “Jeena kangre da” etc. One finds that a folksong exists here for every occasion, be it happiness or sadness.

There is a village by the name of Bhuira at Rajgarh tehsil in Sirmaur district. It is known today for its sweetness – sweet songs of Krishanlal and handcrafted fruit jam made from fresh and fine ingredients handpicked by the workforce of the factory. It was Linnet Mushran, a British by birth and in her 70s at present, who started this all-women enterprise in 1999 and in the past 20 years the jam has earned a name and is ‘selling like hotcakes’ today. In this village was born Krishanlal to Ganga Ram and Ram Devi in 1949. He completed his primary education at Bhuira village school. Under the influence of his mother Ram Devi, who was a good singer having restricted her singing to the four walls of the village home, he also started singing. The students of the school started calling him Rafi Saheb. He moved to Rajgarh for further studies and there he was dubbed with the surname ‘Sahgal’ after the great singer of the past. Since then he is popular in the state as KL Sahgal. He not only sings with apt skill traditional folksongs that are sung in the length and breadth of Himachal Pradesh but has also added his own written and composed songs to the state’s rich repertoire.

He honed his skill of singing with professional qualifications too when he cleared Sangeet Visharad in vocal music and tabla playing from the Prachin Kala Kendra, Chandigarh, and Sangeet Praveen in vocal music from the Prayag Sangeet Samiti, Allahabad. He did his BA (Honours) in Hindi and MA, M. Phil and Ph. D in vocal music from HP University. He served the state government as Assistant Professor (Music) till 2008. He is pleased that his two daughters, Sarita and Neerja, are teaching music in the colleges of the state while his one son is working as District Public Relations Officer and has interest in playing tabla. His eldest son is looking after agricultural land in the village. He had once grown 300 plus peach trees in the vast land that he owned but due to an attack by an untreatable disease, they had to cut all the trees. Since then they are growing off-season vegetables, which are giving them cheery dividends.

Sahgal has several audio-cassettes to his credit – “Lok Madhuri”, “Lokranjani”, “Naati ra Pheraa”, “Swaranjali”, and “Meri Jaani ra Basera” are a few. When Anoop Jalota was to take out his album “Koke de Lashkaare”, he took Sahgal’s help and it was in his music direction that the album was released. 

Sahgal has not confined himself to singing folk songs only but is also apt in Indian classical and light-classical music. He is quite adept at handling both his rural and city-bred listeners and knows that very few can relate to this traditional art of singing folk songs and its aesthetic philosophy, which has its roots in the universal, analytical aspects of human psychology. He believes that music is created out of vibrations and that is how it connects the microcosmic world with the macrocosmic universe so easily.

He has several awards in his bag, including the Akashvani Prasar Bharti Award in 1998, ‘Gaurav Samman’ given to him by the state government in 2017 and the ‘Sangeet Shiromani’ award bestowed on him by the state Language and Culture Department in 2019. These days, he is running the Sangeet Kala Sadhna Kendra at Solan and teaches classical, semi-classical, sugam and folk music to the youth of Himachal.  

TAILPIECE

“Folk music is the original melody of man; it is the musical mirror of the world” — Friedrich Nietzsche   

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