Guzarish is the latest album by young ghazal singer Mohammed Vakil. This is Vakil’s heartfelt tribute to music stalwarts such as Begum Akhtar, Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Mohammed Rafi, Lata Mangeshkar, Jagjit Singh, Vakil’s gurus Ustad Ahmed Hussain and Ustad Mohammed Hussain and Ghulam Ali. Mohammed Vakil’s three new compositions have been composed by Manju Narain, an accomplished singer, composer and poetess, who has been the disciple of Sarfaraz Hussain Khan and now learning under the guidance of Ustad Ahmed Hussain and Ustad Mohammed Hussain of Jaipur Gharana. Manju has been composing ghazals, bhajans, pop and folk songs and her previous album Aah was greatly admired. Mohammed Vakil, trained in the Guru-Shishya Parampara of the Jaipur Gharana is also the winner of TVS Sa Re Ga Ma mega-finals 1998 and has been honoured with the R.D. Burman Puncham Sammaan by Abhinaya Kala Parishad, Pathankot. He has sung a song in Yash Chopra’s Veer-Zaara along with Ustad Ahmed Hussain and Ustad Mohammed Hussain.
Born on January 25, 1976 at Jaipur (Rajasthan) in the family of renowned classical ghazal singers, Vakil became conscious of his singing skills from the age of 5. But it was only after his first stage performance in 1985 that the music bug bit hard and he began rigorous training and riyaaz under the guidance and continuous motivation provided by his maternal uncles Ustad Mohammed Hussain and Ustad Ahmed Hussain. His first ghazal album, Sapne, was released in 1998, Vakil has released two more albums since, Kasak and Kehdo Kehdo, besides singing for the television serial Bikhari Preet Nikhari Aas under Khayyam and being the anchor of ETV’s Urdu show Ghazal-Sara.The singer has shared the stage with eminent names like Bhupendra and Mitalee Singh, Jagjit Singh, Pankaj Udhas, Anup Jalota, Talat Aziz, Roop Kumar and Sonali Rathod, Shankar Mahadevan, Sonu Niigaam, Kavita Subramaniam and Shreya Ghoshal.
