One of the main reasons why sad ghazals were an important part of our films in the past was that their story line very often dealt with problems that the tradition-bound, perennially-cash-strapped, middle-class people face in life.

So, when in an old film we heard the protagonist intoning a ghazal in a sad, pensive voice to express his frustration in life, we could readily empathise with him.
Such indeed was the popularity of ghazals that filmmakers of the 50s and 60s would sign only those music directors and lyricists who excelled in this genre. Thus, music directors like Anil Biswas, Naushad, Ghulam Mohammad, Sajjad Hussain, Madan Mohan, Roshan, Khayyam, Jaidev, and a few others were considered to be the best ghazal composers in films.
Some of the f1lm ghazals composed by Madan Mohan are evergreen. For instance, who can ever  forget, ‘Yo on hastraton ke daag ... ‘ (‘Adalat’), ‘Hum pyar mein jalne walon ko chain kahan, aaram kahan ... ‘ (‘Jailor’), ‘Tujhe kya batao on ai dil tuba, tere samne mera haal hai’ (‘Akhri Dao’), ‘Aap ki nazron ne samja pyar ke qabil mujhe ... ‘ (‘Anpadh’), ‘Hum se aaya na gaya tum se bulaya na gaya, phasla pyar mein dono se mitaya na gaya ... ‘ (‘Dekh Kabira Roya’), ‘Mein yeh soch kar us ke dhar se ... ‘ (‘Haqeeqat’) and many other such musical gems that Madan Mohan composed for Hindi films?
When it came to recording ghazals for films, Madan Mohan’s favourite male singer was Talat Mahmood. There is an interesting incident showing how Madan Mohan relied on Talat Mahmood for singing the ghazals set to music by him.
For ‘Jahanara’ (1964), the film producer wanted Mohammad Rafi to sing all the ghazals to be picturised on the hero, but music director Madan Mohan had his way. He recorded these ghazals - ‘Teri aankh ke ansoo pee jaoon’, ‘Phir wohi sham wohi gham wohi tanhaee hai’ and a few others - in the voice of Talat Mahmood, and the result is well known to lovers of vintage film music.
The decline of ghazal in Hindi films began sometime in the 80s. In the early 80s came three films - ‘Umrao Jaan’ (1981), ‘Arth’ (1982) and ‘Saath Saath’ (1982) - in which we heard some beautiful ghazals. For ‘Umrao Jaan’, Asha Bhosle sang unforgettable ghazals, in the mujra style, under Khayyam’s impeccable music direction. Two of these - ‘Dil cheez kya hai aap meri jaan leejiye, bas ek baar mera kaha maan leejiye’ and ‘Yeh kaun si jagah hai dosto’ - still keep haunting lovers of ghazals.
In Mahesh Bhatt’s ‘Arth’ (1982), Jagjit Singh sang a beautiful ghazal, ‘Tum itna jo muskura rahe ho”. His other film ghazal, ‘Tum ko dekha to yeh khayal aaya’ (‘Saath Saath’) - also became very popular. For a while it seemed that Jagjit Singh would prove to be a worthy inheritor of Talat Mahmood’s mantle, but the themes of our films and also musical trends were changing fast, leaving hardly any scope for ghazals in films.
Now the ghazal has been virtually banished from Hindi films. There are several reasons behind it. First, the films we make nowadays do not need ghazals. Can you imagine a present-day film hero, with his six-pack abs on display as he goes around bashing his adversaries, or dancing with orgiastic fervour with the heroine, singing a ghazal? Can we expect Salman Khan, with his shirt off and flexing his biceps, singing a ghazal like this one, ‘Hein sab se madhur wo geet jinhe hum dard ke sur mein gatey hain’?
Then, the craze for overloud Punjabi pop songs in almost every other film made in Bollywood has destroyed the very concept of soft, mellifluous music that we heard in old Hindi films. We nowadays evaluate songs not by their mellifluousness, but by their decibel level.
Finally, enjoyment of ghazals presupposes a tolerable knowledge of Urdu, which, unfortunately, the present generation lacks woefully. In fact, decline of the ghazal can be directly traced to the decline in the number of Urdu-knowing people. - PTI Feature