EXCLUSIVE | Talat Aziz on working with Sharmila Tagore: 'I also had a connection with her husband Tiger Pataudi'

Veteran singer and actor Talat Aziz was recently seen on the show Gulmohar, an aching and anguishing take on the complexities of family relationships. The show has been receiving rave reviews for its endearing yet piercing portrayal of nearly every character’s dynamics, right from Sharmila Tagore to Amol Palekar to Manoj Bajpayee.

And Aziz spoke exclusively to Firstpost about music, cinema, acting, and much more.

On his four-decade long journey in cinema

With a lot of pyaar, ishq, and mohabbat. I’m grateful and god has been kind that I’ve been relevant even today. I’ve sung and acted also in Gulmohar and I really enjoyed interacting with one of my favourite actresses of that time, Sharmila Tagore. I’ve been watching her since the time of Aradhana. I also had a connection with Sharmila ji’s husband Tiger Pataudi, we used to call him Nawab saab. His elder sister’s daughter and I were in the same school.

On his passion for singing

I never thought I would make singing in cinema my profession. I’m talking about times when life was very simple. I was a child when I used to see mehfils at my house, people singing or reciting shayaris so I also began singing with them. One day, my father said I have a good voice and I should learn this craft. He kept an Ustad for me who used to teach me 1-2 times a week, and when I grew up, I became fascinated by Ghazals. I was actually into cricket and was under the National coach, Azharuddin was my junior, you can ask him. When Sharmila ji and Tiger got married, I was in school, and there was a big party at his elder sister’s house. So when I met Sharmila ji on the sets after such a long time, she remembered me.

On the music of today

Some of it is good. There’s a word in our language called Mukhda, which means face. So you’ll remember the song only if the Mukhda is good. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have talented people today, yes we have. Out of 200-250 songs, there are 1-2 songs that are impactful, we still listen the old songs. We still listen to the music of Umrao Jaan and Daddy.

On the trend of remixes

The trend of remixes is gone, we now recreate. There’s something called creation. I recently released an album called Yaadein, and all these Ghazals were recorded back in the 80s. I re-recorded all the Ghazals depending upon today’s style and technique.

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