Lata Mangeshkar Dies: The Nightingale Of India Flies Off Into Eternity! Skip to main content

Lata Mangeshkar Dies: The Nightingale Of India Flies Off Into Eternity!


A voice we grew up with. A voice unimaginably sweet and melodious, also trained in the Indian classical music tradition. A voice that transcends all the three octaves with consummate ease. A voice that became an integral part of an evolving Hindi film industry in the forties and has been one ever since. A voice that paired with almost all the great voices of the legendary Hindi playback singers ranging from the forties to the 2000s, from Mohammad Rafi, Kishore Kumar, Mukesh, Manna Dey, SP Balasubrahmanyam and Bhupendra among others to Suresh Wadkar, Udit Narayan, Sonu Nigam and many others. A voice that was worshipped by almost all of the music directors of the country during the same period of nearly seven decades, from Vasant Joglekar, Ghulam Haidar, Vasant Desai, C Ramachandran, Shankar-Jaikishan, Khayyam, SD Burman, Madan Mohan, Salil Chowdhury, Bhupen Hazarika, Laxmikant-Pyarelal, Kalyanji-Anandji, RD Burman and others to Anand-Milind, Nadeem-Shravan, AR Rahman and so on. A playback singer who rendered more than 30,000 songs in 36 Indian and a few foreign languages, primarily Hindi and Marathi. A voice that earned the celebrated titles of ‘Nightingale of India’, ‘Queen of Melody’ and ‘Legion of Honor’ from France. A legend who remained a celibate all her life.

 

Bharat Ratna Lata Mangeshkar (1929-2022) has passed away today at the age of 92 after undergoing nearly a month of treatment for COVID-19 by a dedicated team of doctors at the Breach Candy hospital in Mumbai. Millions of her fans across all generations and ages have been disturbed by her hospitalization and then conflicting reports in the media/social media. Finally, the Nightingale of India has flown off into eternity with condolence messages pouring in from celebrities, political leaders and commoners across all fields of activities. The nation mourns the demise of probably the best female singer ever of India. COVID-19 pandemic thus has added one more star to its uncompromising tally.

 

It is redundant to describe the life of a legend as almost everyone knows about her. We can only mention that after losing her music-composer father Dinanath Mangeshkar at the early age of 13, Lata, being the eldest in the family, had to take up the job of earning for her family and started working as a singer-actor in Marathi. She sang her first Hindi song in 1943 and moved over to Mumbai in 1945. And then, there has been no looking back for Bollywood of yore and present. However, if one is looking for full details about the legend one can click Here.

 

When I joined Films Division, Mumbai on transfer in 1987 I was thrilled to know that the residence of the Mangeshkar’s larger family is also located at Pedder Road. So, for many years I had been used to pass by ‘Prabhu Kunj’ every day before reaching my office, and in ‘Prabhu Kunj’ building lived with her all of Lata’s siblings all of whom are accomplished musicians-singers: Meena Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle, Usha Mangeshkar and the only brother Hridaynath Mangeshkar. At times I used to walk past the building and showed it to all my relatives, friends and whoever happened to be my guests or visitors. During my years in Doordarshan News, Mumbai we had the privilege of meeting her live on some occasions,

 

It is well-nigh impossible to select one or two favorite songs of mine from the huge numbers almost all of which have been lovable and melodious, and it’d be a kind of injustice too. However, two songs of Lata Mangeshkar, fondly called Lataji (respectfully) or Latadi (elder sister), come to my mind at a regular basis. Although the songs are not from great and memorable movies, I’m putting up the songs for opinions of my readers, if any.

 

The first is a superhit song from a movie called Intaquam (1969) which has unusually strong and richly composed instrumental music, not typical of the music director duo Laxmikant-Pyarelal, and kind of a trendsetter that was later picked up by RD Burman and AR Rahman. The song is also unusual, because here Lataji sings for the brilliant dancer cum the famous vamp of Bollywood movies of yore, Helen. In almost every other movies only the heroines of get blessed with Lataji songs in their lips.

 



The second song is from a superhit breezy thriller movie called Victoria No.203 (1972) which has melody as well as strong and delicious music composed by Kalyanji-Anandji. Of course, here the legendary singer sings for the heroine Saira Banu (wife of the Dilip Kumar) who happens to be trapped by the villain of the movie in a frightening situation and is singing to buy time so that she could be rescued.

 



Our tributes and homage to Dada Saheb Phalke Award winner Lata Mangeshkar who would remain in the hearts of her fans forever and always fresh. Although not officially doing recordings for the last few years Lataji has been an active public figure, speaking on various issues, trends and events. We’d miss that too. 

Comments

  1. The masterprice was recorded before my brith. Though I have never played this song myself, I have heard it many times over the years. My father, who grew up listening to these songs, frequently play them. We happen to have some of her vinyl records.

    ReplyDelete
  2. ভাল লাগিল পঢ়ি । পেদ্দাৰ ৰ'দতে ঘৰ আছিল যে পাহৰি গৈছিলো । ধন্যবাদ ।

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Hi! Welcome! Please comment what you feel! 😊

Popular posts from this blog

The VIP Brat: A Study in Contrast!

Here we’re talking about only two  compartments inside a particular AC 2-Tier coach in a particular daily train under the Indian Railways that departs a particular originating station at around noontime and reaches the destination city early morning the next day. The train is popular because it is superfast and always on time. That fateful noon too, the train was ready for boarding about one hour before departure. We cut to the inside of that particular coach having those two compartments for our contrasting study. Two elderly couples were in a state of considerable distress. One of them, both technically senior citizens, had been allotted two upper berths and the husband was at his wits end how to proceed, because his wife was being taken for check-up after surgeries in both of her knees—she could hardly walk and her climbing up the berth was a sheer impossibility. The husband was also on the wrong side of the sixties, but he thought he could manage the climbing once he managed a ...

Mitali: The Trauma of Losing a Sibling

Maybe I lied to her when I used to reassure her that she was going to be alright and was going to resume her life in some measure of normalcy in the future years; maybe all my gestures/expressions were false when I used to run my fingers across her forehead or embrace her on occasions when she was able to move around a bit; and maybe all my exhibitions of love care and responsibility were exposed as superficial when I failed to turn up in Delhi where she along with my mother were treated during September-October, 2022 (my mother Urmila Chakravarty was also diagnosed with dental cancer the same month the same year as she was) and when all the members of my parental family and the in-laws converged. Since that fateful day in August, 2022 when she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer to that disastrous day of March 6, 2025—the day my younger blood sister Mitali (Mainu) Chakravarty Sarma (November 2, 1963—March 6, 2025) passed away in the wee hours in a hospital in Guwahati after giving a bra...

Release of Book 'Randomized: A Dozen Short Stories'!

The fourth collection of stories titled 'Randomized: A Dozen Short Stories' by Chinmay Chakravarty has been released on Amazon KDP just now! This collection, short stories in a lighter vein plus with mild satire like the previous collections, has been published in both the E-book and Paperback formats. The links are given below:  International: Click Here ! India: Click Here !  Other collections of short stories by the same author: The Cheerless Chauffeur and Other Tales(2021)--Notion Press. Funny and Fishy Tales(2022)--KDP. The Weirdos(2022)--Ukiyoto Publishing. All books of the author are available on Goodreads, apart from Amazon and other outlets! Have a look!