RMIM Archive Article "164".
From the RMIM Article Archive maintained by Satish Subramanian
#
# RMIM Archives..
# Subject: Lata Mangeshkar - Singer of Saint?
#
# Posted by: apn@cs.buffalo.edu (Ajay P Nerurkar)
# Source: Times of India, Bombay
# Author: Raju Bharatan
#
The recycled article that follows makes clear how Lata perfected
her Urdu diction, so much so that Naushad, himself a more than
competent speaker of that language and a stickler in such matters
picked her for Andaaz to the consternation of Dilip. Enjoy (and
pardon Raju for going overboard with the title of the piece).
Ajay
This is yet another article from the TOI, Bombay. It is an ex-
tract from the book "Lata Mangeshkar : A Biography" by Raju
Bharatan.
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Singer or Saint ?
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Can you believe that Lata Mangeshkar was an itsy-bitsy teeny-
weeny 532-day-old as Wazir Mohammad Khan brought, on 14 March
1931, the sound of music to Indian cinema with 'De de Khuda ke
naam pe pyaare taaqat ho gar dene ki' in Ardeshir Irani's Alam
Ara ? Those Urdu words of the first Hindustani song in the first
Indian talkie must have registered indelibly in the psyche of
Lata Mangeshkar. For she was to take Dilip Kumar at his withering
word and prove that Urdu was no less her language of expression
than Marathi.
Lata, as I have already noted, was first exposed to the dizzy
dazzle of Dilip Kumar on a local train, way back in 1947. "Yeh
nayi ladki hai, achcha gaati hai" ("This is a new girl, she sings
well") is how Anil Biswas paraphrased Lata to Dilip Kumar. When
Dilip Kumar was told that Lata was a Maharashtrian, the Pathan in
him reacted from the gut. "Inka ek problem hota hai", Dilip said
of Maharashtrian Lata, "inke gaane main daal-bhaat ki boo aati
hai" ("There's one problem about these people from Maharashtra,
in their singing you get the odour of gravy and rice")!
Stung in the tongue with which she was going to win over the
world, the Honey Bee, from that very day, sat down to lessons in
Urdu from a maulvi called Shafi. Lata notes that she worked
ultra-hard, from that pungent point, to "achieve clarity and
proper diction" in an Urdu language made for dialogue delivery by
Dilip Kumar. Even so, when Dilip Kumar and Lata Mangeshkar were
brought together some 23 years later for that Khushwant Singh
"Weekly" cover story, the first enquiry from Dilip Kumar, in
preparation for lunch, was, in effect, whether Lata Mangeshkar
was a "daal-bhaat" (vegetarian). Lata was not, but she never for-
got that early "daal-bhaat" odium cast on her singing worth by
Dilip Kumar. At the first opportunity she got to render a duet
with him, she so outsang Dilip Kumar that he realised sharply
that the little Maharashtrian girl, of whom he was once "daal-
bhaat" dismissive, had, in her singing, mastered the Urdu diction
to a point where even Dilip Kumar was 'easy meat' for her !
In fact, Dilip Kumar now genuinely wondered how possibly he could
have doubted her Urdu credentials when Naushad first let it be
known that Marathi Lata would be singing "Uthaye jaa unke sitam"
and "Tod diya dil mera" in his Nargis- Raj Kapoor co-starrer An-
daz. Dilip Kumar, famous by then for his romantic mop of hair,
had hit the roof when Naushad suggested the name of Lata. Lata
then swore that she would one day, bring Dilip Kumar down to
earth. The one who thought he was the greatest acting show on
earth was soon to encounter, in Lata, the greatest singing show
on earth. Lata in Andaz brought to the expression of Urdu poetry
some of the flair Dilip Kumar brought to the expression of Urdu
prose. Naushad had worked wonders with the girl.
That for the Andaz class of sustained singing Lata Mangeshkar was
awarded the Padma Bhushan as early as 1969, that for the Andaz
class of sustained composing Naushad was awarded the Padma
Bhushan only 22 years later in 1991 is a barometer of the
metamorphosis in climate effected by this megasinger by which she
was able to show each pioneer-composer his place. Indeed, by
1991, every single composer who claimed to have made Lata and
Asha had unmade himself. Neither Naushad and Nayyar counted by
1991, only Lata and Asha did.
Lata and Asha, they are the Corsican Sisters of our music. Hurt
Lata by hurling the word 'monopoly' at her and Asha is hit at the
same spot at the same time ! But Asha, really speaking, only
carries the onus of shouldering half a share of the Mangeshkar
monopoly. All the big credits accruing from that monopoly have
been to Lata - from the Padma Bhushan in 1969 to the no less
prestigious Dadasaheb Phalke award in 1990. You are either born
to charisma or you are not. You cannot achieve charisma. Least
of all can you have charisma thrust upon you.
Lata Mangeshkar at 60 was a milestone. Lata Mangeshkar at 65 is a
speed-breaker. The breakneck pace at which music is written,
rehearsed, rendered and recorded makes Lata a helpless giantess.
She no longer needs to announce her retirement from films. Hin-
dustani cinema has itself announced how much need it now has for
her. There were those moments of high anguish when Lata felt di-
minished by the departure of contemporaries like Geeta Dutt,
Mukesh, Mohammed Rafi, Kishore Kumar and Hemant Kumar. Today Lata
is reduced to singing them in her Shraddhanjali series. This is
but a reminder that, as far as Hindustani cinema goes, Lata is
treading on her past. On her past and now on the past of other
singing greats.
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From the RMIM Article Archive maintained by Satish Subramanian