We are all guilty of overusing adjectives such as ‘great’ and ‘genius’, for it is an extremely rare breed of individuals that answers to these descriptions. Every once in a long while, however, comes along somebody for whom even these superlatives are little more than understatements. Lata Mangeshkar was one such individual. The only way to describe her is to call her Lata Mangeshkar.
‘She will always be with us’, ‘The void she has left will never be filled’, ‘Nobody can possibly replace her’, ‘The world will never ever be the same again’ and similar platitudes are often heard on the occasion of a death, especially that of a well-known individual. For the immediate survivors, these sentiments are, of course, true because their loss truly is irreparable and for them life is indeed never the same again. But for others, these are clichés, albeit fitting ones for the occasion. When it comes to Lata Mangeshkar however, these are literally true for millions upon millions of her fans.
My own introduction to Lata was in the late seventies when I was all of four years old, via one of two Sony C60 tapes with a selection of my father’s favourite Lata songs on both sides: Kitne din aankhen tarsen gi, Chhor de saari dunya kisi ke liye, Pandit ji mere marne ke baad, Ab to hai tum se zindagi apni, Dil dhoondta hai phir wohi and other gems. (The other tape had Kishore Kumar classics.) Down the years, many more tapes would follow. Over time, cassettes gave way to CDs, which in turn were replaced by the dish antenna, USB flash dives and YouTube, but the love affair thus started has yet to come to an end. Charles Darwin famously remarked that he would make it a rule to listen to some music every week if he had his life to live over again. I am glad I had the good sense to listen to music much more frequently than that and that Lata was always a major part of it, as I am sure she has been a big part of every Urdu/Hindi speaking music lover’s life.
Girls participating in singing competitions have, for decades now, been facing a familiar dilemma: Almost inevitably they choose Lata’s songs, what with their undying popularity among the audiences (masses) and the judges (connoisseurs) alike. But on the flip side, these songs are notoriously difficult to sing, as they all find out. The seeming effortlessness with which Lata sings the most difficult of songs often hides how impossibly difficult they are to negotiate for other mortals. Her ease with the low as well as the high notes and her flawless rendering of Urdu words – out of the thousands of songs that she has sung over a long career, one would be hard pressed to put one’s finger on an instance where she has mispronounced a word – are astounding. This latter fact becomes even more impressive considering her Marathi upbringing.
Lata, like Kishore Kumar, was simply a freak of nature. Like Kishore, it is impossible to imagine her going off-key even if she attempted to do so. But there were occasions when even Kishore would refuse to sing a song before listening to Lata’s rendition of the same song. If there can be a bigger tribute that can be paid to any singer, I am unaware of it. R.D. Burman’s Mere naina sawan bhadon sung by Kishore became infinitely more popular than Lata’s version, but it was Lata who, on Kishore’s insistence, had sung it before him, and which Kishore had listened to multiple times before he could be convinced to record his own version.
It is true that Lata never saw even a momentary slump in a career spanning six decades. That is an amazing fact, but what is commendable about her life is her uncompromising and meticulous concern for excellence in her work. In that, there is much to learn for the rest of us, even if we do not possess Lata’s gifts.
It is true that Lata never saw even a momentary slump in a career spanning six decades. That is an amazing fact, but what is commendable about her life is her uncompromising and meticulous concern for excellence in her work. In that, there is much to learn for the rest of us, even if we do not possess Lata’s gifts.
Lata’s death has again sparked that all-too-familiar debate on the social media. On one side are those who would enthusiastically try and make her some sort of a saint for bringing happiness and joy to millions of her listeners. (Whether she herself was interested in sainthood is beside the point as far as this group is concerned.) On the other side are those who maintain that a Muslim must not even wish ‘Rest in peace’ to non-Muslims. All I can say on this issue is that it would be altogether a different – and much better – world if people focused on their own fate in the Hereafter instead of worrying about the fate of everybody else.
