RMIM Archive Article "254".
From the RMIM Article Archive maintained by Satish Subramanian
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# RMIM Archives..
# Subject: Asha Bhosle
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# Source: G magazine (http://www.chitralekha.com)
# Author: Varsha Bhosle
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Asha Bhosle
by Varsha Bhosle
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Hers is a profile of true grit. Emerging out of the shadows of a
sibling who is an undisputed Titan, conquering personal vicissi-
tudes, Asha Bhonsle's career is a triumph of spirit and courage.
Her daughter Varsha Bhonsle pays a brutally honest, uncloying,
yet touching tribute to the woman she terms, Saturday's child.
(Friday's child is warm and giving, Saturday's child works hard
for a living...)
The earliest memory I have of my mother - Mrs. Asha Bhonsle to
you - is a fleeting montage of door-bells rung very late in the
night, a sobbing woman hugging me back to sleep, the strains of
strange, repetitive ringing emanating from behind a closed door.
I bang on the door wanting to go in, but am roughly pulled away
by a man when the music threatens to cease. Later, I learned that
that was a routine day in the life of my father, guarding my
mother against all impediment which may have prevented her from
singing for their supper. I have erased my father from my memory,
and with him, some of my own childhood; a defense mechanism, peo-
ple call it.
Mother came into her own quite suddenly. One day it struck her
that her third, and advanced state of pregnancy may not be able
to sustain the daily dose of bashing that came her way. She left
behind every single she had earned, her bungalow, her car, even
her clothes, and sought refuge with Mangeshkar, her mother. Of
course, there were instant theories in the industry about this
`desertion'.
From now I am on safe ground: I do not have to rely on hearsay.
However, my memories of my mother are still not that bright. She
has to work twice as hard, as she has to rebuild from scratch and
there is one more mouth to feed. Although she was always there to
make our home, put us through school, spoil us with luxuries and
take us on outings, I never had enough of her. How a single-
parent manages to merge the roles of provider and home-maker is
beyond my comprehension. Much later, I asked her, you had the
security of the roof of your mother, your sisters; what was the
rush to set up your own house? Instead, couldn't you have given
us more time?" Without missing a beat she replied, "Never again
did I want to be at the mercy of anyone else. It would have been
equally harmful for you three. You had to grow up in your own
home, with the freedom I alone sanctioned." We did, we did.
After setting up independently, rebelled a textbook kind of
rebellion. Much more than today, the film industry, like our
society at large, was saturated with prejudices, hypocrisy and
factions. And it wasn't surprising that Asha Bhonsle was branded
a fallen woman. It certainly didn't help when the closest compar-
able rival was her own sister, the ethereal Lata Mangeshkar.
Soon, choice assignments were withdrawn and a conspiracy of
silence manifested itself into her career. But if anyone so much
as suggested something to alleviate the situation, you could bank
on Asha Bhonsle to do the opposite. After more than a decade of
suppression, and of keeping the shame of her squalid married life
from her family and colleagues, she simply revelled in her abso-
lute freedom. What still fascinates me is the total honesty and
fearlessness with which she lived, as if to say, "My life is an
open book, make what you will out of it". It's accepted that one
needs to humanise a hero in order to understand and truly appre-
ciate him, the corollary to which may be that anidol admitting to
be made entirely of clay, as they all mustbe, is soon relegated
to the pits.
Whatever others may say, I remain convinced that her being gen-
erally type-cast by music-directors as the perennial cabaret, or
singer is a fall-out of her early life. I am hardly qualified to
comment on music, but one fact is undeniable like any other
extraordinary singer, she excelled in all genres, but Hindi film-
makers were ticklish about giving their epitomes of Indian woman-
hood, the voice of this rather camp personality. If the character
was `westernised', her voice was that of Asha. The label stuck
just at the time when the most memorable music was being composed
for the Indian heroine. Curiously, the Marathi, Bengali and
Gujarati music industries were totally unaffected by any of these
tags: some of her best heroine-songs of that period are in these
languages. At the risk of appearing politically incorrect, I have
to say that it speaks volumes about certain regional-culture and
sensitivity.
Moreover, what a coincidence that just around the time of hermar-
riage to R.D. Burman, the `cabaret-singer' label was replaced by
the respectable `versatile'. I grit my teetheach time I hear it.
Just another label signifying nothing. If I were to sum up my
mother in one word, it would have to be `wilfulness' or
`obstinacy' doesn't quite connote the shades of determination,
and readiness to toil that I associate with it and her. The more
formidable the issue, the harder she applies herself to it.
Like her venture into the English music world as a member ofthe
pop-group The West India Company, formed with Steven Luscombe of
Blancmange. One fine day, Anand casually informed her that he had
he had finalised the deal, and that in a month she would have to:
compose, sing, interact with British musicians and technicians,
give live interviews on radio, appear on television - and all
this in English, in England. For a middle-aged person who had
never been to school, let alone spoken a complete English sen-
tence, this, I thought, was an impossibility. I was appalled. I
had the stomach runs for a month, while she diligently rose at
four a.m., donned her walkman and heard ` Spoken English'
cassettes for hours. Well, she did it all: entered the Top-20
charts with her song `Ave Maria', appeared on British and German
television shows, spoke lucidly on radio, addressed the British
press, all with her usual unfazed panache.
Her spirit reaches dizzying heights during concert tours. In
1989, she underwent the most rigorous schedule ever devised, dur-
ing the USA tour. We had to play 13 cities in 20 days,which
entailed cross-country flights taken barely a few hours after the
completion of each show. Every musician was sapped by the time we
boarded the plane immediately after the last concert in Houston.
We were on our way for yet another gig in Stockholm, Sweden. This
journey was the proverbial last straw: suffered a massive attack
of colitis, together with fever, cough and weakness.
The very first result of even one of these complaints is trem-
bling of the voice, which then `splits' into two. At the pre-
concert crisis meeting, it was short of cancelling the gig, the
only way out was that the orchestra play umpteen instrumental
tracks, the accompanying singers (Suresh Wadkarand yours truly)
shoulder the load, and the billed star make a cursory appearance.
Which would, no doubt, have led to a riot. Hereupon my multiple
visits to the toilet commenced.
At the stage-wings that evening, our band-conductor approached me
with the news that Asha had rejected all such `insane' proposals;
she would sing exactly what the audience had to come to hear. I
must add here that most of Asha's hits, like etc, sound `frothy'
and `airy' it is only when a lesser singer attempts them that one
can gauge the tremendous breath-control and pitch modulation
required for these non-classical, hence `lightweight', songs. It
is solely her mastery that makes them seem so easy to execute.
Anyway, I had been clutching at the misguided belief that the
turnout in any city of Continental Europe would be less than
moderate. But, as it must happen at such times, the whole show
was a sell-out. The hall was packed with Indian and Pakistani
expatriates when started with her first set of six songs. I could
recognise the strain in the moments when she suddenly dropped the
volume or signalled the violinist to join in. All I could do was
deliver glasses of glucose to the stage. At best, it was an
indifferent performance; I couldn't blame the audience for its
lack of response. Before the start of the second set of songs, a
lone voice cried out from the audience, "Asha - please sing a
Marathi song. We've come a long way for it." She hummed the open-
ing lines of a song which roughly transalates as "I'm also so
very tired of this endless dancing, oh Lord..."
I have yet to accept what happened in that flash. Perhaps it was
a case of putting mind over matter. Or, perhaps she heard, under-
stood and experienced the words like never before. Or, maybe the
Conductor in the sky decided that she had been tested enough. Her
eyes were closed, both hands clenching the microphone, as she
crooned or belted out the stanzas as the mood gripped her. The
notes and words seemed to swirl in a lazy vortex around the
stage, gently eroding even the mildest defence in their path,
till all was one pristine, homo-centric entity. I remember crying
unashamedly, and a moist-eyed Suresh hugging me whilst murmuring
things like "There will never be another like her; how can she
conjure such magic, against such odds; how do they do it?" There
was absolute silence when the song finally ended. And then, very
slowly, as if gradually awakening froma stupor, the claps and
encores started, building up to such a crescendo that the audito-
rium virtually erupted. I was shocked after all, it wasn't a
predominantly Maharashtri anaudience. But, that is the power of
music. It is the last remaining frontier where complete harmony
exists amongst people of all castes, religions and languages.
From that point of time, the concert gained a momentum of its
own: wecould do nothing to curb it, and Asha Bhonsle could do
nothing wrong.
What did happen to the colitis, fever etc? She was in bed for a
full month, recuperating from over-exertion. But that was after-
wards. Ater all committments had been honourably discharged.
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From the RMIM Article Archive maintained by Satish Subramanian