Ep 09 What makes Mehdi Hassan the Ghazal King?

Mehdi Hassan's Wikipedia page starts with these lines: Mehdi Hassan Khan was a Pakistani ghazal singer and playback singer for Lollywood. Widely considered one of the greatest and most influential figures in the history of ghazal singing, Hassan is referred to as the "Shahenshah-e-Ghazal" (Emperor of Ghazal). So, we decided to ask why? And that led us down into a rabbit hole of the advent of the ghazal, its evolution, and its fate after the poetic form became inseparable from music when singers couldn't keep themselves from singing the couplets. This is the second in our series on Contemplative Listening, which dives into Mehdi Hassan's incomparable prowess in melding Hindustani classical music with ghazal singing.