RMIM Archive Article "12".
From the RMIM Article Archive maintained by Satish Subramanian
#
# RMIM Archives..
# Subject: Asha: A VOICE FOR ALL SEASONS
#
# Posted by: Gopal N Kondagunta (gkondagu@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu)
# Source: The Hindu
# Author: Girija Rajendran
#
==
A VOICE FOR ALL SEASONS
Girija Rajendran
for The Hindu
It was as Umrao Jaan that Rekha emerged as the total woman. And
it was as the sensuously sensitive voice of Umrao Jaan Rekha that
Asha emerged as the total singer. "Dil cheez kya hai", "In aan-
khon ke masti", "Justju jis ki thi" and "Yeh kya jagah hai dos-
ton" - these superbly crafted ghazals, going on Rekha, put the
stamp on Asha as a performer supple-throated enough by 1981, to
create her own impact even under the baton of a confirmed Lata
votary such as Khayyam.
"When Khayyam lowered my pitch by half a note for 'Umrao Jaan'"
says Asha, "frankly i was sceptical about the results. But I have
always believed that the composer calls the tune, so I sang just
as Khayyam wanted me to do. Imagine my surprise therefore when he
finally played back to me 'Yeh kya jageh hai doston'. I just
could not believe, so fresh-sounding was the end result. After
that, I just put myself in Khayyam's custody and the outcome was
the Rekha you came to hear and experience as 'Umrao Jaan.'"
It was like virtuosity that Asha brought to the rendition of
'Mera Kuchch saamaan tumhaare paas pada hai', the R.D. Burman
composition for Gulzar's 'Ijaazat' that won her the National
Award as Best Singer. At this point, there were quite a few who
felt that Asha was not just Lata's peer, but had forged ahead of
her. It had taken Asha the best part of 35 years to do it, for
decades she had laboured under the complex that she was the
lesser singer, because she was the lesser sister.
O.P. Nayyar, the composer who first gave Asha her own distinct
performing identity, has a revealing happening to narrate here.
"Asha and Lata staying in opposite flats at Bombay's Pedder Road,
shared a common maidservant." says Nayyar."Now this maidservent
had merely to come and tell the younger sister that Lata had just
recorded something wonderful for Asha to lose her vocal poise.
Such was her Lata phobia that it took me some months to convince
Asha that she had a voice individualistic enough to evolve a
singing style all of he r own. It took some doing, but I finally
managed to bring Asha out of her fixation.
The two Asha and O.P. Nayyar, certainly made memorable music.
'Jaadoogar sanwariya' ("Dhake ki Malmal"), 'Chhota sa
baalama'("Raagini"), 'Puchchon na humen hum unke liye'("Mitti Men
Sona"), 'Aankhon se jo uttari hai dil mein' ("Phir Wohi Dil Laya
Hoon"), 'Bekasi hadse jab guzar jaaye'("Kalpana"),'Akeli hoon
main piya aa aa aa'("Sambandh") and last but never the least,
'Chainse hum ko kabhi'("Pran Jaye Par Vachan Na Jaye") are but
some of the Nayyar nuggets that rank as musical landmarks in
Asha's life. Even the 'Dum maaro dum' effect that Asha went on to
achieve, under the baton of R.D. Burman, could not erase the
sultry-sirenish garb in which Nayyar had presented her, on Mum-
taz, as 'Yeh hi reshmi zulfon ka andhera' ("Mera Sanam').
Why is so much made of the Asha-O.P. tuning when she gave number
after number to remember under S.B. Burman, too, in the same era?
Because Nayyar was the one and only composer for whom there was
no Lata, only Asha. By contrast, Dada Burman, even while getting
Asha to put her all she had into 'Ab ke baras bhej bhaiyya', had
turned, in the same 'Bandini' back to Lata with 'Jogi jab se tu
aaya mere dwaare'!
"It was O.P. Nayyar," says Asha "who taught me how to use effec-
tively the bass in my voice, while from Dada Burman I learnt the
each and every emotion,in a song. " If that sounds as though
Asha learnt more from S.D. than from O.P., let it pass. The
Asha-O.P. parting, remember, was bitter, so that she may have
hesitated to give Nayyar his due.
Dada Burman, for his part, praised Asha generously for her But
Asha, it is pertinent to recall, had displayed similar fantastic
breath control, full ten years earlier, while putting over
'Aayiye Meherbaan' for Nayyar in "Howrah Bridge." Yes it is the
same "Howrah Bridge" in which Geeta Dutt left such a telling ef-
fect through 'Mera naam Chin-Chin-Choo'! Asha those days, even
while being eternally compared to Lata, had simultaneously to
fight for the slot already occupied by Geeta. So is it any wonder
that Asha rates Nayyar's
It is next important to remember that, even as O.P. Nayyar and
S.D. Burman vied with each other to exploit Asha's vocals to the
hilt, she remained second choice with all other composers who
mattered in 1951-60, the golden decade of Hindustani film music.
It is not as though, in this determinant decade, Asha did not
give splendid results under composers mentally commited to Lata.
If it is a proof of Asha's artistry under such pro-Lata composers
that you want, you have it in Madan Mohan's 'Ashkon se teri hum
ne' ("Dekh Kabira Roya"), Anil Biswas's 'Dil shaam se dooba jaata
hai'("Sanskar"), Naushad's 'Ek baat kahun mere piya'("Amar"),
Sajjad's 'Tere jahaan se chal diye'("Rukhsana"), C. Rama-c
handra's 'So jaa rechanda so jaa' ("Aasha"), S.D. Burman's
'Tasveeren banti hain taqdeeren banti hain'("Jeevan Jyoti"),
Jaidev's 'Deepak se deepak jal gaye'("Anjali") and Salil
Chowdary's 'Thandi thandi pawan ki phuhaar'("Jaagte Raho").
The idea in making these Asha selections from the decade in which
the com- posers identified above vibed, first and last, with Lata
is to draw pointed attention to the fact that had these Lata-lorn
composers but cared to take the trouble, they could have tapped,
in Asha, a throat of equal potential. But these master composers
just would not care to give Asha a fair hearing those days, so
this spirited performer had finally to make it on her own by the
long hard road.
Today therefore, if Asha is able to keep resonant pace with Boy
George and Ghulam Ali alike, it is because she is now her own
singing woman. O.P. Nayyar and S.D. Burman might have shown her
the way, R.D. Burman might have given her vocals a mod 'Mera naam
hai Shabnam' turn but, in the end, the fact remains that it was
on her own steam that Asha emerged, against all odds, as a free-
wheeler singer who was all things to all composers. The remark-
able aspect of Asha's vocalising is that she made it to the top
in the face of vintage composer after vintage composer dismissing
her as not a patch on Lata. Even Hansraj Behl, after having re-
jected Lata's voice as 'tinny' and acknowledging Asha as the sis-
ter with greater potential, was to return to Lata once the latter
made sensationally good.
Life early on was thus one long heartbreak for Asha. A less
determined woman would have given up the fight in the face of
such sustained discrimination. But Asha never said die. And fi-
nally carved a niche for herself that saw even a Lata addict like
Salil Chowdary come to her for 'Baagh mein kali khili' (Chand aur
Suraj").
Today Asha has done everything Lata has done - at least in films.
Nobody doubts her prowess anymore. In fact, such is her reasoning
that the new line of composers shy away from her, diffident about
creating something truly worth- while for her to render. But Asha
is past caring now. The struggle to there has been so exhausting
that she now works on her terms alone. Very likely, she is at a
stage where she has outgrown films. Today she works increasingly
on those more demanding non-film albums. Asha genuinely feels
that the new voices fail to offer the kind of competition calcu-
lated to draw the best out of her.
"You just cannot imagine the kind of challenge it was to sing
with, for instance, Kishore Kumar, " says Asha. "With this amaz-
ingly natural performer, you had, all the time, to watch out for
some stratagem or other at the very last minute . Kishore was
such a spontaneous and innovative performer that i had to be on
my guard always. Yet Kishore always used to say that I was his
match at the mike. I particularly remember, from 'Nau Do Gyaarah'
Dada Burman's "Aankhon mein kya ji" in which i barely managed to
keep pace with Kishore.
"As for Lata, I would suddenly discover that she had taken the
duet we were singing together to a crescendo that put me on my
mettle. Here too i had to be extra watchful, since Lata habitual-
ly held her notebook in her right hand, I in my left hand! This
meant Lata had her face away from me at the outset itself - some-
thing that made it all the more difficult to 'anticipate' a
note-stealer like her! Still I think I copied, judge for yourself
from our harmonious duets together, like Shankar-Jaikishan's 'Yeh
barkha bahaar sautanya ke dwaar' ("Mayurpankh"), C.Ramachandra's
'O chaand jahaan woh jaaye'("Sharada") and Madan Mohan's 'Jab Jab
tumhe bulaaya' ("Jahanara").
Like Lata, Asha is humility personified. Like Lata, she has the
gift of making even a classicaly oriented number sound lucid
enough for the lay liste- ner to hum. From "Gunga Jumna,"
Naushad's 'Tora man bada paapi' in Khamaj, from "Kaajal", Ravi's
'Tora man darpan kehlaaye' in Jaunpuri, from "Lal Patthar',
S.J.'s 'sooni sooni sans ke sitar par' in Jaijaiwanti, from
"Prarthana", Hrida- yanath Mangeshkar's 'O baanwri' in Purya
Dhanasri, from 'Maya Macchindra", Govind-Naresh's 'Chhalak rahi
boonden' in Bageshri, from "Saranga", Sardar Malik's 'Chali re
chali main to' in Des- these are numbers which prove that, no
matter what the status of the composer, Asha unfailingly
displayed the knack by which the raga-based tune got positively
across to the audience.
Here then is a performer who has turned the business of popular
singing into a near art-form. Asha Bhosle must justly rate as our
most flexible voice on record. Her potential,in truth, was al-
ready translating itself into existing performance even as we
posed the question: 'After Lata, who?'
Why then does Asha Bhosle seem to have lost out in films today,
when she is at the peak of her vocal powers? Asha has lost out
for the same reason that S. Janaki is to be heard less and less
today - for concentrating on the style of songs that come ulti-
mately to be taken for granted. With the plum tunes going to Lata
in Asha's formative years, with Geeta cornering what remained of
the ligh-veined numbers, Asha was rarely offered the luxury of
choice. She had to sing whatever came her way("Remember, i was
still in my teens when i became the bread winner in the Bhosle
family and had to keep the home fires burning.")
Significantly, Asha has sung more songs than Lata in the 1951-60
decade in which Lata swept aside all competition to make her mark
as a "tuneful symbol of national integration." Since their
careers ran paralle, the focus always remained on Lata. Yet it
was none other than Naushad who said to me the other day: "You
know, Asha is Lata's match in every respect." Astonished, i rem-
inded Naushad:"But was it not you yourself who told me some years
back, when i asked you to sum up the essential difference between
the two sisters, that Asha lacks certain something which Lata,
and Lata alone has?" "Maybe i said that then,"replied
Naushad."Maybe i said it because i then had a closed ear on
Asha."
But why only Naushad, a whole generation of composers, a whole
generation of listeners, had a closed ear on Asha, did they not?
The Lata effect was such that Asha had to fight a grim rearguard
action for a decade and a half. It is something that must, there-
fore, rebound to Asha's eternal credit that she was able, ulti-
mately, to create an Asha effect that stood out as something dis-
tinct even while Lata continued to hold untrammelled sway.
Now, in 1990, Asha is no less a phenomenon than Lata. Asha's re-
pertoire, more varied than Lata, speaks for itself. In that
classy "Utsav" duet scored by Laxmikant-Pyarelal, for instance,
you discern that Asha is on an equal footing with Lata as she
chips in with:"Bela mehka re mehka aadhi raat ko". The two, Asha
and Lata, have been performing contemporaries for full 40 years
now. Through those two score years, if Lata brooks no equality,
the truth is that Asha, too admits no superiority. At long last,
Asha's impact is her very own, if Lata is Lata, so is Asha Asha.
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From the RMIM Article Archive maintained by Satish Subramanian