Queen of ghazals

Gleaming in her bright yellow and fuchsia dress, the curly-haired Peenaz Masani spreads a cheerful vibe around.

One of the leading female ghazal singers of India, Peenaz was in the Capital for adjudging the finale of 35th annual singing talent competition Surtarang. Speaking in chaste Urdu and Hindi, Peenaz’s conversational voice is as melodious as her singing.

When asked about her singing appearance onstage during the event, she says, “I am primarily here to listen to the best of talents brought from across India who have been given a chance to get onstage and let the industry here them.” Turning down our hopes momentarily, she immediately breaks into singing a couple of lines, dil lagaana koi mazaak nahi, gham uthana koi mazaak nahi...”, sweeping us off our feet with that magic in her voice.

Peenaz was spotted in a musical talent hunt three decades ago and speaking of it makes her nostalgic. “I was performing in Rang Bhawan where Jaidevji spotted my voice. 1979 it was!” says the singer wondering how time passes by. In that show she sang , “Baiyan na dharo for the prelims and jhanak jhanak payal baaje for the finals. Naushaadji, Jaidevji and Rajkapoorji were the judges for that life turning musical evening.

Ever since 1981, Peenaz has been casting the spell of her voice. “My first playback singing break came from Rajesh Roshan which started of an amazing career in music. I got to sing with the likes of Kishore da, very early in my career.”

Though ghazal singing is her forte, she also dabbled into popular music, “Pop music was a one-off case in my singing career... Shantanu Moitra had not composed for a film back then and he was this very excellent composer so I sung for his album Lakeerein. But what you call popular music, I would call
Penaazi pop.”

She describes Penaazi pop in three words: Melodious, mischievous and yet again melodious. She  signed off saying, “Like I always say, learn classical music if you want to lay a foundation for your career in music. Only when you learn shastriya music, does your understanding of music develops manifold.”