NEW DELHI, Feb 18 (UNI) Having traversed the corridors of royalty to politics and then literature, multi-faceted Dr Karan Singh has now made inroads into singing in his attempt to revive the dying folk culture of the language he is most familiar with Dogri.
Vice-president Bhairon Singh Shekhawat earlier this week released Dogri Lok Geet , a music album featuring eight traditional folk songs in that language and sung by Dr Singh himself, in the presence of several eminent personalities including R.
Goenka and Sanjeev Goenka of Sa Re Ga Ma who have produced the album.
"I have been interested in music since the age of twelve," Dr Singh told UNI during an interview on the sidelines of the release event.
In fact, he had released an album of bhajans some years ago and they were written and sung by him.
He also hoped to release another album of ghazals next year, again written and sung by him.
But he said he did not write the lyrics in the present album, as they were traditionally known folk songs.
Harbhajan Singh has rendered the music for the album.
Dr Singh said he had always felt that Dogri had not received adequate importance as a language despite being the spoken language of a sizeable population stretching from Himachal Pradesh and Punjab to Jammu and Kashmir.
The folk songs were also being forgotten and he decided to keep these alive for posterity.
A Sanskrit scholar, Dr Singh said that he manages to find time even now for practising singing everyday despite a busy schedule in public life.
He is also a renowned author and is currently engaged in penning another book.
Sanjeev Goenka said the music company was involved in a lot of creative work in areas that were often ignored by others, and was therefore interesting in keeping alive the ancient musical traditions of this country.
