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       Pankaj Udhas, Bollywood Singer and Maestro of the Ghazal, Dies at 72

       His soulful renditions of ghazals, or traditional love poems, were featured on the soundtracks of hit Bollywood movies and moved generations of Indians.

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       The singer Pankaj Udhas at an award ceremony in Mumbai last year. Credit...Sujit Jaiswal/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

       By Suhasini Raj and John Yoon

       Suhasini Raj reported from New Delhi, and John Yoon from Seoul

       Feb. 27, 2024

       Pankaj Udhas, a singer from India whose soulful renditions of ghazals, or lyric love songs, were a cornerstone of many Bollywood films over his decades-long career, died on Monday in Mumbai. He was 72.

       His death was announced on social media by his daughter Nayaab Udhas. She did not specify the cause, saying only that he had died after a prolonged illness.

       Mr. Udhas moved generations of people in India and the Indian diaspora by singing ghazals, the lyric poems that have been written for centuries in Persian, Hindi, Urdu, Turkish and other languages. He also worked as a playback singer, a vocalist who records tracks for actors to lip-sync.

       Mr. Udhas became a stalwart in the Indian music industry through his more than 50 albums and the enormous success of the movies in which he sang.

       But his true passion, he said in a 2018 talk organized by Google, was the ancient lyric form.

       “My heart was always with ghazals,” he said, adding, “Cinema, though it was an attraction, it was never the first choice.”

       Padmashri Pankaj Udhas was born on May 17, 1951, in Jetpur, a city in the western Indian state of Gujarat, Indian news media reported. His father, Keshubhai Udhas, played the dilruba, a traditional Indian stringed instrument. His mother, Jeetuben Udhas, sang. And both of his brothers, Manhar and Nirmal, also became professional singers.

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