By Tauseefuddin Khan
Ghazals are strictly based on meter and lyrics are based on tune.
Most of the ghazals lack the musical attachment and as such only few of them are composed musically. And, Ghazal follows strictly radeef/qafiya and other conventional rules – where as lyrics writing is not required to follow those rules and can be independently written.
A particular ghazal can bring several different thoughts in all it’s couplets but in lyrics it’s not possible. A song cannot become sad when it started on a romantic note and vice versa. The theme and subject is strictly followed till the end of the song – with slight modifications which is usually found in some songs – example: roothna manana songs.
Ghazal writers are poet and lyricist and song writers are lyricist if not poet
In ghazal takhallus is used – in lyrics writing it’s not.
Ghazals often becomes part of mushaira’s (symposium) and lyrics writing a part of music culture.
Geet are more popular because of films but ghazals are not so popular. The takers for ghazals are very few compared to geet. But ghazal has more superiority over geet – the writer is free of tune and also free of subject limitations. A ghazal writer can sum up the whole universe in one ghazal where as for a geetkar or lyricist it will take many songs to sum up the whole universe. This is one of the single most important different which makes ghazal a superior form of poetry.
Further, ghazals are intellectually high and as a result – there is more ‘wah wah’ for a ghazal writer and ‘the lyrics are good’ for a lyricist. Very few lyrics gets wah wah.
You’ll find few ghazal singers and abundance of geet singers. When it comes to ghazal- names like Jagjit singh, Mehdi hassan, & Pankaj udhaas will instantly comes to your mind and when it’s geet singers…names like Rafi, kishore, kumar sanu, sonu nigam, etc. comes to mind. Ghazal singing is perhaps difficult genre compare to geet singing.
Same situation is with composers – you’ll not get in plethora ghazal composers where as composing a song/geet there are many in the pipe line.
Ghazal now adays don’t enjoy mass appeal but geet/songs have the mass appeal simply because it’s being narrated or presented with strong media like films and lots of music channels.
There are some ghazals which were composed like songs and are still very popular – especially old movies songs were written in ghazal form – But this trend is now exist no more.
Among many forms of Urdu poetry — ghazal and geet are two of them. Geet is a type of poem and its each verse revolves around the central idea of the poem. For example – if it’s a love song – each and every verse says something about it. Infact, geet is a poem which is logically developed and written.
Ghazal , which means 'talking to woman' in Arabic, is basically poetry in praise of a woman. It's a collection of couplets ( shairs or ashaar ) which deal with subjects completely unrelated to each other, yet are complete in themselves.
Some old songs are written in a structured meter and rhythm which is consistently same from beginning to end. Example,. chaudhvi ka chaand ho ye aaftaab ho…the antra is also of same meter. If you sing that antra in mukhda tune – you’ll not find any difficulty. Because the meter is kept there as it’s but the antra is composed in different style. As the tradition of our bollywodod music…mukhda and antra tunes are different. But antra mingles with mukhda with the last line in all most all songs. Some songs meter is same as well as tune…like kabhi kabhi mere dilme and ek ladki ko dekha toh aisa laga. One of the contrasting and main elements of difference between a geet and ghazal is that. A ghazal from beginning to end has a definite meter where as the geet has no such meter – but for rhyming purpose each couplet should have a definite meter or it should flow smoothly with the tune.