After making an impact with the international audience with his moving score for Leela, Ghazal maestro Jagjit Singh is all set to make a grand comeback to film music – with four new projects with different filmmakers. After the phenomenal success of Leela, producers are approaching Jagjit to score music for their films. Finally, it seems like Bollywood has woken up and is giving his music the kind of recognition it deserves. Leela, starring Vinod Khanna, Dimple Kapadia and Deepti Naval, captivated audiences with its melodious numbers including a strumming guitar in the background, a typical Jagjit touch. Leela is his first film venture in nearly two decades.

Thanks to Leela, Indian producers making English films have requested Jagjit to score music for their international ventures. His latest project includes one for Deepak Nayar, the producer of Bend It Like Beckham. He is also looking forward to composing the background score for three untitled ventures. This talented musician who has given great music for flicks like Saath Saath and Arth stayed away from the glamorous world of Bollywood since no one was interested in his particular kind of music. He is extremely unhappy about the fact that melodious music has disappeared except in very few films. Besides, mainstream filmmakers are no longer interested in serious music, he opines.

As the music of a film plays a huge part in popularizing it, commercial producers are hardly willing to experiment with different kinds of music. Curiously, though, international filmmakers of Indian origin were making meaningful cinema where Ghazals and semi-classical numbers could fit in easily. Jagjit feels that his choice of singers, viz., Sonu Nigam, Hariharan, Alka Yagnik, Babul Supriya and Shreya Ghoshal were suitable for rendering great melodies. And who can dispute this when his music speaks for itself?