Chitra Singh

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Chitra Singh is a famous India-based singer of Urdu/Hindi ghazals and wife of Jagjit Singh, also a prominent ghazal singer. They together remain one of the most popular duet teams and are considered pioneers in modern ghazal singing. Chitra Singh (maiden name Née Dutta), born in a Bengali family had no formal musical training but had strong roots of music in her family and learnt much of her music by listening to her mother's guru.

Chitra singh met Jagjit singh in Bombay in late 1960s and both used to sing jingles for various adverts, thus starting a career together. Their career as a duo took off with lanching of The Unforgettables, an album which had several firsts to its credits and which revolutionised the concept of Ghazal ghayaki. Till then, it was confined to mehfils (a musical performance, mainly of ghazals with not a very large audience) and primarily patronized by the elite of the society.

Along with ghazals, the duo sang and composed for Hindi, Punjabi and Bengali albums. They contributed to devotional music by releasing albums such as Krishna, Chirag, Hey Ram, Shabads. Indeed Krishna is one of the largest selling titles in its category.

After the untimely and tragic death of her son Vivek Singh in a road accident, Chitra stopped singing and retreated into a private world. She has been learning and working on different forms of spirituality and believes in psychic healing methods.

Many of the duo's fans still miss her splendid voice which gave songs such as Yeh tera ghar yeh mera ghar, Tum aao to sahi, "Woh Nahin Milta Mujhe", Saare badan ka khoon, Mitti da bawa etc. Chitra's voice is specially suited for ghazals resulting in soulful gems like "Lab-e-Khamosh se (album Beyond Time)" and the ones listed above. Her clear, touching and high-pitched voice provided the perfect blend along with Jagjit's deep bass and smooth voice, to create an extraordinary effect in the form of their brilliant duets: "Ishq Mein Ghairat-e-jazbaat Ne", "Aaye Hain Samjhane Log", "Uski Hasrat Hai Jise Dile Se Mitha Bhi Na Sakoon". Chitra's voice also had a special dimension within the gamut of ghazal singing, which meant that in the case of a "darbari mehfil" ghazals (as in Dil-e-Nadaan Tujhe, Dil He To Hai,Har Ek Baat Pe Kehteh Ho, from the album Mirza Ghalib) she was almost unparalleled.

Her fans await her return to this day.