Saif Ali
Lata Mangeshkar’s in depth oeuvre spanned 70 years – incomparable to another Indian artiste within the century.
India misplaced Lata Mangeshkar in the present day. She was 92 and maybe essentially the most revered and well-known artist who impressed generations of artists within the sub-continent for nearly a century. She contracted Covid and was admitted to Mumbai’s Breach Candy Hospital last month after suffering from severe symptoms of pneumonia.
It could be ludicrous to say that Lata Mangeshkar was good, amid different adjectives of commendation. Just because she was Lata Mangeshkar. Similar to Mozart, Bach, or Beethoven, Lata Mangeshkar has been a moniker for excellence. And can proceed to be so for many years to return. Technical prowess apart, her genius lay in her reference to the tune, a connection that tied collectively her listeners too. Her model of the tune was inevitably the most effective that it may very well be.
An artiste so surpassingly distinguished and impossibly prolific, Mangeshkar managed to do what many couldn’t. She completed a degree of musical perfection that continues to be unmatched in Hindi movie music. “Kambakhat Galati se bhi besura nahi gaati,” Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan had famously mentioned with exasperation, and happiness rolled collectively.
However Lata Mangeshkar, in addition to giving us over 25000 songs – every lesson in self-discipline, grit, and brilliance which typically solely belonged to her regardless of the tune being a group effort – additionally did one thing else. She made India and Pakistan unanimously agree over one factor – the excellence of her voice. Be it the famed story of a letter that got here to All India Radio from Lahore, which stated that India may have Kashmir if they may give Lata Mangeshkar to Pakistan, or tales of her legions of followers on the opposite aspect of the border, a few of them senior classical musicians, who spoke of her because the Partition’s greatest loss for Pakistan – there was a particular bond between the 2 nations when it got here to agreeing on the magic of Mangeshkar’s voice. Noorjehan, the enduring singer Mangeshkar admired and adopted a lot earlier than she made it as a profitable singer, had as soon as stated of her – “People say that she admires me. Par Lata toh Lata hai. Meri nazar mein Lataji ki tarah koi aaj tak paida nahi huya”. High praise that – coming from Madam Noorjehan.
Mangeshkar was born in Indore in a Sikh neighborhood and raised in Kolhapur in a musical household. Her father Master Dinanath Mangeshkar was a musician from Gwalior Gharana who ran a drama firm and Lata’s first guru. She went to high school just for a day. She was about 5 and took a younger Asha (Bhosle) alongside along with her. However, the faculty wouldn’t enable such a younger little one to take a seat within the class along with her. She determined to by no means return.
At dwelling, she would hearken to her father educating his college students and imbibe the items. At some point her father noticed her correcting one in every of his college students and was astounded at how deftly the kid taught. He determined to show her the ropes of classical music. However, his premature dying led Lata, the eldest little one of the household to start work at 13.
It was Master Vinayak, her household’s shut buddy and proprietor of Navyug Chitrapat movie company who took care of the household and helped Lata grow to be an actor and singer. Her’s first tune was Vasant Joglekar’s Marathi movie Kiti Hasaal, but it surely didn’t make the ultimate minimize. She sang a few songs for some Marathi movies earlier than transferring to Mumbai in 1945. It’s right here that she started coaching beneath the aegis of Ut Aman Ali Khan of the Bhendibazaar gharana. Vinayak additionally launched Mangeshkar to composer Vasant Desai. He, too, handed away in 1948 after which it was composer Ghulam Haider who took Mangeshkar beneath his wing and launched her to filmmaker Sasadhar Mukherjee who had simply arranged Filmistan studio. However, Mangeshkar was rejected by Mukherjee who thought her voice was too skinny. Offended that his judgment had been doubted, Haider went on to proclaim a prophecy – “music composers would beg Lata to sing for them”. Haider gave Mangeshkar her first vital break with the tune ‘Dil mera toda, mujhe kahin ka na chhoda’ – a chunk that appears like an imitation of Noorjehan’s barely nasal type. In some years, Mangeshkar was singing otherwise, in that skinny but mature voice that was to meet Haider’s phrases within the coming years.
Quickly the nation cocked its ears to the gramophone enjoying Aayega aanewala, the haunting Khemchad Prakash composition from Mahal (1949) that took the nation’s breath away and sealed her supremacy within the Indian movie business for many years to return with no rival in sight. The tune broke all data at Radio Ceylon as folks flooded their workplace with letters to ask for the singer’s title (The gramophone company only carried the character’s name — Kamini). Each composer took discover. Lata Mangeshkar had arrived. There was additionally the irreverent Mughal-e-Azam (1960) ditty Pyar kiya toh darna kya or the profound Sahir Ludhianvi piece Allah tero naam ishwar tero naam (Hum Dono) or the playful Piya tose naina laage (Guide, 1965), each time Mangeshkar sang, she captured a sense so pure, that it left one with a way of gratitude in direction of her. Particularly when she sang Kavi Pradeep’s Aye mere watan ke emblem to C Ramachandra’s tune and a nation’s collective consciousness with the Indo-Sino struggle because the backdrop. The nation wept, so did Pt Nehru.
A few of her most profitable outings have been with composers Naushad, Anil Biswas, SD Burman, Shankar Jaikishen, C Ramachandra, Sali Chowdhury, Hemant Kumar, Roshan, Madan Mohan, Khayyam, Jaidev and Ravi among others.
As Mangeshkar climbed the ladder of success, one tune at a time, tales about rivalries and her vanity got here to the fore. Essentially the most vital being along with her sister and veteran singer Asha Bhosle. Music composer OP Nayyar infamously by no means requested Mangeshkar to sing for him. In a radio interview with Ameen Sayani in 1984, which is famously titled ‘Lata Se Darte Darte’, Mangeshkar had stated that Asha ran away from dwelling to marry Ganpatrao Bhosle at 14 and the household was sad. Additionally, Bhosle wouldn’t enable her to talk to the household. “Asha is my sister and we have very different styles. She gets her share of the songs and her fair share. There is no question of rivalry… As for Nayyar sahab,” she’d mentioned. One other was with Mohammad Rafi, with whom she had most of her legendary duets. This argument was over royalty points. Whereas Mangeshkar needed royalty for her songs from the record company, Rafi believed that after the tune had been sung and the singer paid for it, it wasn’t the singer’s property anymore. The 2 didn’t sing between 1963-1967.
Mangeshkar crooned for a gamut of actors – from Madhubala and Waheeda Rehman to Kajol and Madhuri Dixit. She sang by means of the 90s and a few a part of the 21st century and the songs comparable to Yaara seeli seeli (Lekin, 1990), Maaye ni maaye (Hum Aapke Hain Koun.!, ), Jiya jale (Dil Se, 1998), and Mere khwabo mein jo aaye (Dilwale Dulahaniya Le Jayenge, 1994) have been a rage – a testimony to the truth that one didn’t must be of a sure age to sing for younger heroines. Mangeshkar sang for nearly everybody. Her well-liked final outings have been Veer Zaara (2004), the place composer Madan Mohan’s previous tunes have been resurrected and the poignant Lukka chhippi in Rang De Basanti (2006) Amid many awards, she was awarded the Dada Sahab Phalke Award in 1989 and Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian honor, in 2001.
Along with her dying India has misplaced one in every of its most prolific and significant artistes – the final of her variety. India wouldn’t be identified without her voice that might dwarf the whole catalogs of the nation’s most legendary musicians. She leaves India, not simply along with her huge oeuvre but a way of satisfaction amid light shades of patriotism, the type we felt once we noticed her draped in the tricolor for the first time, crooning Mile sur mera tumhara. toh sur bane hamara…
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