Writing has been an integral part of Lalita Goenka’s life since her childhood. What changed was when she decided to view her craft from a new lens. At 50, she began pursuing lyric writing seriously as a profession. The lyricist shares that family responsibilities and life events had delayed the decision. “[In the early years], my articles used to appear in many Hindi magazines. When I turned 45, people told me, ‘You write well. Why don’t you try writing for Bollywood?’ But the pandemic happened at the time. After that, my father-in-law wasn’t well. I prioritised my family,” she says.
It was only after the pandemic and her daughter`s marriage that Goenka turned to lyric writing. Fortunately, talent has a way of making up for lost time. As proved by her album, Hairat.
Had someone told Goenka in her growing up years — when, as a girl in a small town, she used to scribble her couplets in notebooks — that she would collaborate with sitar maestro and singer Ustad Shujaat Khan one day, she would have laughed in disbelief. Yet, today, her discography includes Hairat, her album with Khan. It didn’t come easy though.
She reveals that she had to wait patiently for quite some time till Khan agreed to sing her ghazals. “I learned that he preferred the couplets to be written in a specific structure. I immediately wrote and sent it to him,” she recalls.
Khan was particularly struck by a couplet from one of her nazms: ‘Ek hi ghar mein hai na jaane base kitne ghar, qareeb rehke bhi hai rehti door duniya teri, hairat hoti hai mujhe dekh ke duniya teri.’ She adds, “It was music to the ears when he agreed to sing my nazms.”
Ghazals may have few takers in today’s generation that is obsessed with catchy numbers and songs with hooks. But the lyricist is confident that the art form is far from disappearing. She says, “Everyone is leading the same struggling life and facing the same problems. If you give lyrics that reflect life, connect with those moments, you cannot go wrong.”
For Goenka, who has also penned a few qawwalis for Kutle Khan and ghazals for Jaswinder Singh, what distinguishes her writing is a spiritual undertone. “Even if I write about romance, there will be a spiritual connect to it,” she exclaims with gratitude.
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Ghazals Lalita Goenka wrote in ‘Hairat’
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