Melody queen Lata Mangeshkar, who once called Hassan the 'voice of God', said, "A singer like him is born once in a millennium. It is my bad luck that I could not sing with him when he was healthy. Now I can only regret. With his demise the music fraternity has lost a great and legendary singer."
Singer Talat Aziz, who trained under Hassan, said, "I feel a tremendous personal sense of loss. I was his 'shagird', I spent a lot of time with him. For me he was a star. I don't have words to describe his loss. He was a great asset to the world of Ghazal. Though he was not singing for quite sometime, but he will be missed. There will never be another Mehdi Hassan."
"I remember him saying I can see 'sur'. We should celebrate him across India and Pakistan because he was an asset to both the countries. He was legendary. Such people come only once in a while," Pakistani Sufi singer Abida Parveen said.
Another Pak singer Adnan Sami said, "He has been an inspiration to anyone who has anything to do with music. He created an institution called Mehdi Hassan... I am still absorbing the news. It's difficult to digest that he has passed away."
Zila Khan said, "I am sad as I was when my father died. What aesthetics of music, what a great artiste he was. In his field of work he was a king because his choice of 'kalam', his music, was supreme."
"It is a great loss. Everyone learnt from his music, technique and style of singing. I had the opportunity to meet him and he was always encouraging. He has been unwell since quite sometime," said singer Chitra Singh, wife of late Jagjit Singh. (MORE)
