Any mention of Hindi playback singer Lata Mangeshkar, reverentially called Lataji, takes me down memory lane.
It was in the late 1950s, when she was still in her twenties and already established as one of the best playback singers, that I first saw her perform from a dais put up at the St. Xavier’s College quadrangle in Mumbai. When she took her place on stage, it was akin to a queen surveying all her subjects gathered before her. Hundreds of us stood transfixed as the melody queen sang in Hindi, Sindhi, Marathi (her mother tongue) and even English.
Born into a musician’s family in the then princely state of Indore (now in Madhya Pradesh in central India), Lata made her debut in Hindi with the song “Dil Mera Toda” (My heart is broken) in 1942 for the film “Pahili Mangagaur.” She was just 13 years old then. There was no looking back and today, she is an iconic figure not just in the Hindi film industry, but all over India, having sung in 20 regional languages as well. Her popularity extends beyond the Indian borders — she has a huge fan following not only in neighboring Pakistan and Bangladesh but also in the Gulf and some Western countries.
When I spoke to her very briefly because she was mobbed in the famous quadrangle of the then Bombay University, I asked her if I should one day add Arabic to her repertoire of languages. She smiled politely and said she hoped so. What was remarkable was the ease with which she shifted from Hindi to other languages, almost effortless, but they had the same melodious voice and mastery over pronunciation and rhythm.
With the partition of the Subcontinent and migration of Noor Jahan to Pakistan, Lata began to be noticed. Her first big hit was the song “Aayega Aanewaala.” During the early 1950s, she was already a rising star and she was singing for great music directors like as Shankar-Jaikishan and Anil Biswas. Stalwarts like as R.D. Burman and S.D. Burman also gave her due credit.
When she was in her twenties, Lata’s popularity graph went north and her rise was meteoric with four major hits in quick succession from the films “Barsat,” “Andaz,” “Dulari” and “Mahal.” She was already being acknowledged as the best playback singer in history. Her presence in any film almost guaranteed the success of the movie, which reflects her popularity with the masses.
Lata is only the second singer to win the highest civilian award of India, Bharat Ratna. Three national awards added to eight Filmfare awards adorn her collection before she requested not to be considered for more awards, a very unusual gesture by an Indian great.
Almost all the eminent music directors contributed to her outstanding songs.
Naushad was one of them and he actually sang for me some of the songs he had composed for her and told me that India had nobody else to rival her genius.
Her sister, Asha Bhosle, followed in her footsteps and was also a leading playback singer, who had her own piece of center-stage attention.
Very soon Lata became a powerful force to reckon with and was confident enough to stand up to legendary actor and director Raj Kapoor, when they had a spat and she refused to sing in his films. Finally, he had to relent and make peace. Lata, on her part, also realized that she could not altogether do without the Raj Kapoor’s RK Films banner, which made films like “Awara” and “Shree 420,” which were lapped up by moviegoers. The first one arguably had the most popular songs in Hindi cinema while the latter immortalized Hindi music with the unforgettable song “Pyar Hua Iqrar Hua” wherein Raj Kapoor stood under an umbrella with Nargis and bewitched the masses with romancing in the rain.
Lata, who has 30,000 songs to her credit, shared the limelight with stalwart male singers like Mohammad Rafi, Kishore Kumar and Mukesh, as she mastered every shade of Hindi music, every genre of rhythm.
I noticed that her voice was different from those of earlier singing queens like Noor Jahan, Shamshad Begum and Zohrabai because it was thinner and sharper, the type that could break glass, similar to the Arab legendary singer Um Kulsoom — or Kalthoom, to be precise. But Um Kalthoom did not sing on behalf of other actresses but performed on stage one Thursday a month until her death in the early 1970s.
Experts claim that unlike other singers, Lata actually understood the nature of every song and absorbed it, besides being willing to sing more than one song a day as she moved from one studio to another in Mumbai. In the process, she amassed a fortune said to be in millions, part of which she used to build a hospital, besides donating to charities. Her wealth and success can be attributed to a country that loved music beyond belief. Neither Um Kalthoom nor Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley would come close to her.
The renowned magazine “Filmfare,” which comes from the stables of Bennett Coleman, who also publishes the Times of India, India’s premier daily English newspaper, runs an annual competition for readers to choose their favorites from all fields of cinematic performance. Each year, millions of readers chose Lata as their favorite singer, and she won the best female playback singer award eight times in a row. She wrote to the magazine requesting it to drop her name in order to give others a chance to receive he award. Since a Filmfare award was a passport to fame and a winner could be sure of achieving great heights, Lata, who had won enough awards, decided to call it quits. Can you imagine an Oscar winner requesting not to be considered for future awards?
• Farouk Luqman is an eminent journalist based in Jeddah.
• luqman@srpc.com