Ghazal maestro Anup Jalota can soon be seen in a new avatar -- as Satya Sai Baba.
The ‘Bhajan Samrat’ is donning the role of Satya Sai Baba and a look at the picture makes it hard to believe that it is Mr. Anup Jalota. The role seems to fit him like a cap. He was excited about the role, when The Hindu caught up with him during his visit to the city to perform ‘Bhakti Sandhya’, a devotional music programme at the Port Kalavani auditorium here on Sunday on the invitation of Mahavir International, Visakhapatnam.
“The film is almost complete and is slated for release on August 15. I am also acting in ‘Happy Singh’, which is about a pop singer of India. The shooting of the film is on,” he said. The last film song he sang was for ‘Dadagiri’, the music for which was scored by Anu Malik.
“I have sung around 50 film songs but I prefer singing bhajans (devotional songs) as they are more interesting. I have 200 bhajan albums and 10 ghazal albums,” he says.
While agreeing that penchant for ghazals among the audience is on the wane, he said: “When most people cannot even understand Hindi fully, you can’t expect them to enjoy ghazals, which draw from Urdu language,” he reasoned.
Third visitAnup Jalota, who was awarded Padma Shri in 2012, was on his third visit to the city. “I had visited Visakhapatnam for the first time around 25 years ago. It’s a very good place. On the drive down from the airport, I found a lot of greenery, good roads, big buildings and many of them seem to have come up in the last 25 years. It’s a peaceful city and I like it very much,” he said.
