It is said, and rightly so, that Music is the Queen of Arts. This reminds me of what Pandit Nehru said, at a Concert of the renowned M.S.Subbulakshmi,addressing her:" I am after all only a Prime Minister; You are the Queen of Music!". Music is held at such a high esteem!
Music is refreshing, entertaining, soothing, even ennobling.It touches one's heart, nay, one's Soul. It makes one forget the world, and revel in ecstacy. Blessed are those great gifted Singers who have been a source of infinite delight and soothing happiness to the vast multitude of listeners. Such a legendary Singer, in our midst today, who has been reeling out countless melodious unforgettable songs, for the last over six decades, is the Nightingale of India, the inimitable Lata Mangeshkar! Her sweet melodious voice has been ringing in the ears of millions in this country and abroad.
Today, and perhaps next one or two weeks, I wish to relate some details of her life-story:
It is not very often that a person with prodigious talent is born in the ambience, particularly conducive to that talent.But this is exactly what happened to Lata Mangeshkar, the melody queen, the 'First Lady of Film Music' and 'indisputable and indispensable Queen of India's playback singers' as the Times magazine described her. Several other honorifics, appelations, honorary Univ Doctorates, and Dadasaheb Phalke Award, besides being Fellow of Sangeet Natak Academy, also adore her. At the top of all, in Jan 2001, she received the highest civilian honor of India, the Bharat Ratna.
Born on 28 Sept 1929 at Indore, Lata was initiated into music by her classically trained father, Master Dinanath Mangeshkar, who was a celebrated singer-actor of the Marathi stage. Whille only six, Lata could detect and correct a flawed note being rendered by one of her father's students. Noticing his daughter's astute perception of music, Dinanath started honing her talent at that tender age, and recommended to her the singing style of the great K.L.Saigal. It is since then, that Lata has been nursing an avid admiration for Saigal whose style, she says, accompanied her throughout her career.
When Lata was nine, she was giving her stellar singing performances on the stage. At eleven she topped in a music competition organized at Kolhapur by Pancholi Art Pictures of Lahore to spot talent, and won two medals. Master Dinanath gravitated from the stage to film making, but suffered huge losses in his very first celluloid venture. This broke his heart. He fell ill, and died in 1942,leaving behind his wife Shudhmati, eldest daughter Lata, and her younger siblings Meena, Asha, Usha and Hridayanath, in a state of deprivation. Thus, compelled to seek some job to keep the family's kitchen fire burning, Lata offered to act and sing in films, as she thought that was the only thing she could do. Thru a friend of her father's, she was introduced to Master Vinayak (father of actress Nanda), in whose Marathi production 'Pahili Mangla Gaur' a hilarious comedy, she made her debut as an actress, in the role of a mischevous teenager. She also sang a song in that film, under the music direction of Dada Chandekar.
Lata's first Hindi song which was picturized on her, was a patriotic numberfor a Marathi film "Gajabhau" in 1944, but the first mainstream Hindi film for which she sang was "Aap Ki Sewa Mein", directed by Vasant Joglekar, for whom she had earlier sung as a playback artiste for the first time in Marathi.
Lata also acted in Master Vinayak-directed Marathi film "Chimkula Sansar" (1943), and Hindi pictures "Badi Maa" (1945), "Jeevan Yatra" (1946), "Subhadra" (1946), and "Mandir" (1948). When Master Vinayak moved from Kolhapur to Bombay, the Mangeshkar family also shifted there. It was in Bombay that Lata learnt further music from Ustad Aman Ali Khan Bhendibazarwale, Amanat Khan Dewaswale, and Pandit Tulsidas, a disciple of the famous vocalist Bade Ghulam Ali Khan.
With the partition of the country in 1947, Noorjehan migrated to Pakistan, leaving the singing arena open for Lata, with virtually only Suraiya as the singing actress. But other female playback singers Amirbai Karnataki, Zohra Begum of Ambala, Shamshad Begum, Raj Kumari, Sitara of Kanpur, Geeta Dutt, Meena Kapur etc., were rendering some memorable melodies.
According to Lata, she was discovered as a singer by Master Ghulam Hyder of "Khazanchi" fame, who discerned a great promise in her singing, and visualized her as the most resplendant star of the future, in the subcontinent's music firmament. He even recorded a duet of Lata and Madan Mohan for Filmistan's "Shaheed" in 1948, but producer S. Mukherjee did not include that number in the film. However, in 1949, three of her films: "Mahal", "Andaz", and "Barsaat", which had lilting numbers, scored by Khemchand Prakash, Naushad, and Shankar-Jai Kishan respectively, zoomed her to great heights. Then, there was no looking back, and gradually all music directors wanted only Lata to sing for them.
Lata continued to sing in the Noorjehan vein. Music directors of the period like Anil Biswas, C.Ramachandra, and Shyam Sundar also cast her songs in the Noorjehan mold for quite some time. It was only a few years later that Lata freed herself from that syndrome, and shone on her own steam. The first quarter-century of independent India was the golden era of Indian film music, and Lata was its most popular female singer. Music directors vied with eachother to present their best from them by employing her vocal skills dexterously, and interpreting music through her songs, many of which became immortal gems.
With the partition of the country in 1947, Noorjehan migrated to Pakistan, leaving the singing arena open for Lata, with virtually only Suraiya as the singing actress. But other female playback singers Amirbai Karnataki, Zohra Begum of Ambala, Shamshad Begum, Raj Kumari, Sitara of Kanpur, Geeta Dutt, Meena Kapur etc., were rendering some memorable melodies.
According to Lata, she was discovered as a singer by Master Ghulam Hyder of "Khazanchi" fame, who discerned a great promise in her singing, and visualized her as the most resplendant star of the future, in the subcontinent's music firmament. He even recorded a duet of Lata and Madan Mohan for Filmistan's "Shaheed" in 1948, but producer S. Mukherjee did not include that number in the film. However, in 1949, three of her films: "Mahal", "Andaz", and "Barsaat", which had lilting numbers, scored by Khemchand Prakash, Naushad, and Shankar-Jai Kishan respectively, zoomed her to great heights. Then, there was no looking back, and gradually all music directors wanted only Lata to sing for them.
Lata continued to sing in the Noorjehan vein. Music directors of the period like Anil Biswas, C.Ramachandra, and Shyam Sundar also cast her songs in the Noorjehan mold for quite some time. It was only a few years later that Lata freed herself from that syndrome, and shone on her own steam. The first quarter-century of independent India was the golden era of Indian film music, and Lata was its most popular female singer. Music directors vied with eachother to present their best from them by employing her vocal skills dexterously, and interpreting music through her songs, many of which became immortal gems.
Talent was inborn and ingrained in Lata, but she was not metamorphosed into a sweet and consummate singing artiste overnight. It was after a prolonged and sustained earnest effort, marked by vigorous practice, that took her to the very pinnacle of excellence and glory, where she reigned supreme for over six decades.
Lata got so engrossed in her single-minded pursuit that the thought of marriage never received priority in her scheme of things. Today Lata dotes on her nieces and nephews. She is religious, secular and charitable by disposition, and has donated large portions of her earnings for laudable social causes. She founded two schools and a College in Maharashtra, and takes active interest in running them.
As she was getting Filmfare Best Playback Singer Award every other year since its inception in 1969, she declined to accept any more, abdicating in favor of younger and upcoming singers. She was however awarded Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award in 1994.
Lata is the world's most prolific recorded female Singer ever, with highest %age of hit songs from her formidably rich repertoire. She also recorded a large number of non-filmi compositions. Her fan-following spans not only her contemporary three generations in India, but also music lovers of every hue and clime the world over.
( NB: This life-story in three instalments, is reproduced from an Article in 'India Perspectives' August 1998, by B.M. Malhotra. More recently, there has been a British publication "Lata in her Own Voice" released in Mumbai)
( NB: This life-story in three instalments, is reproduced from an Article in 'India Perspectives' August 1998, by B.M. Malhotra. More recently, there has been a British publication "Lata in her Own Voice" released in Mumbai)
However, I wish to reproduce here a special contribution by R.M. Vijayakar to India West (31 July 09) entitled "Things you did not know about Lata". Not fully, but mostly :
*** Her mother Shudhamati was a Gujarati.
*** Her first car was a Hillman, but subsequently has a Mercedes gifted by Yash Chopra.
*** Her first public performance at age of nine, was at Sholapur. She sang Raag Khambavati and two Marathi songs.
*** She is a Bond film addict, and has watched the 1943 "Kismet" fifty times.
*** In 1962, she fell ill and it was feared that she could never sing again. Medical reports revealed that she was slow-poisoned by her cook, who sneaked off.
*** Lata used to eat 12 raw chillis at a time, and likes spicy food with lots of chillies.
*** In Los Angeles, she spends her nights at the slot-machines, drinking coca-cola.
*** Her unfulfilled desires include never meeting her idol Kundan Lal Saigal, and not being able to playback for Dilip Kumar.
*** She likes listening to Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Chopin, Nat King Cole, Beatles.
*** Madhubala put in her contract that Lata would sing all her songs. Lata personally felt that Nutan did the best justice to her songs.
*** A.R. Rahman, ShamirTandon and Rahul Sharma, are the youngest Composers she sang for.
*** Laxmikant-Pyarelal have recorded almost 700 songs with her, the highest any Composer has with a Singer in Hindi films.
Well, that's it! Something about the great Lata !
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