MUMBAI: Ace music and film director Vishal Bhardwaj has brought forth precious recordings of his college friend Dev Sengupta, who passed away last year. “Dev Sengupta was a Rockstar in Delhi University, where we studied together. We all looked up to him for his innate musicality. His understanding of Indian Classical and Western Music was amazing.”

Vishal also shares the sheer influence Dev Sengupta has on his music, “He is the one who taught me the western chord structure. What’s amazing is that he taught that in a span of one night. He had his own method of working. What was also unique about him was that he knew the key to combine Indian and western music in the best way.”

Little did Vishal think that post their friendship days in college, they would be working together. “He sang two of my compositions, Tamas in the movie Paanch and Yeh Ash Tray in the movie No Smoking.”

However, life is unfair at times and so was it to Deva, as Vishal endearingly addresses him, “He was very talented. He moved to Mumbai for few years and tried making his music career here. But Things didn’t go as planned and he returned to Delhi. Later, we got to know he was dejected and leading life in a shell.”

When Vishal thought of a suitable opportunity to help his friend revive his career, he tried to contact him. However, it was a little late. “Last year, while I was working for MTV Unplugged, I thought of getting Deva on board. I told the Unplugged team that I want to re-introduce a voice. Therefore, I tried to connect with him, only to know that he had passed away a month ago. Such bad was the condition that even his last rites were completed by the cops, as there was no one of his own. He died all alone," says Vishal with abject sadness.

Few days later, their common friend and head of Asli Music label K J Singh, found some records of Deva and that’s when the idea struck. “When I got to know about the records K J Singh had, we decided to make this into an EP. This is a compilation of four ghazals sung by Deva himself and the EP is called Remembering Deva. These are concert recordings done in 1987.”

Ghazals by Dev Sengupta, whose voice labelled as The Golden Voice by none other than the legendary Gulzar would be available on itunes very soon. In a world where sound of music is louder than the actual music, experiencing this would be a treat.

Deva. My dearest friend. He taught me the western chord structure. Sang 2 songs fr me in film paanch -“tamas” & in No Smoking-
“ye ash tray”. Who Gulzar saab called the THE GOLDEN VOICE. i miss you deva bhai. https://t.co/hVGnK8g5Vg

— Vishal Bhardwaj (@VishalBhardwaj) August 13, 2018