Anyone who has seen even one Bollywood classic in their life, in the past 60 or 70 years, probably knows the voice of Lata Mangeshkar. She sang floating, clear, in high waves, almost sounding from another sphere. She was called “Bollywood’s Nightingale” because she lent her voice to several generations of Indian actresses from the 1940s onwards. Bollywood films tend to be sung and danced, but the singing is often taped. The leading actresses are supposed to be pretty but they don’t have to be in good voice, in very many cases Lata Mangeshkar was the real interpreter. By the standards of Indian cinema, Mangeshkar wasn’t pretty enough to star in the films herself, although she did appear in a few. She later recalled how startled she was when a director asked her to have her eyebrows plucked because they were too wide. “I never liked it – the makeup, the light. People boss you around, say that dialogue, say that dialogue, I felt so uncomfortable.”
The fact that she still managed to become famous for her art is a great achievement of her long career and made her a role model. Many actresses specifically requested that Mangeshkar lend their voice. Among others in “Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham” one of the biggest Indian blockbusters. She has sung in more than 1,000 films, and she is said to have recorded around 30,000 songs for various forms of sound carriers, nobody has counted it exactly, her career spanned shellac and streaming. She has been the country’s best-known singer since the 1960s.
She sang for the Prime Minister and became the first Indian woman to perform at the Royal Albert Hall
Lata Mangeshkar was recovered on September 28, 1929 in Indore. She never got an education, her father was also a singer and actor, he produced musical theater pieces. Her sisters have also become known as singers, “We’re very close – we’ve never competed,” her sister Asha Bohsle told the BBC in a 2015 interview, “There’s a lot of love between us and I really enjoy being with her to sing.” Film music was not particularly appreciated at home, Lata Mangeshkar said in an interview, “classical music permeated our family.” After the death of his father, the family first moved to Pune and later to Bombay, as Mumbai was then called, the capital of the Indian film industry. It was booming when Lata Mangeshkar arrived. So she was in the right place at the right time. And she was able to assert herself, “I was fearless.”
In addition to film work, she gave concerts and was soon known nationwide. For Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of Free India, she sang a song for the fallen soldiers of the war with China in 1962 at an event. Nehru wept. Mangeshkar campaigned for better pay for artists, sang for sitar star Ravi Shankar, in whose studio she also met George Harrison. In 1979 she performed at the Royal Albert Hall, becoming the first Indian woman to do so. She collected cars, had nine dogs, and had a passion for Las Vegas slot machines – and for cricket. “I always think: Happiness has to be shared with the world and sorrows have to be kept to yourself,” said Mangeshkar.
The government imposed two days of national mourning, and the flags are at half-mast
Lata Mangeshkar sang into old age, having already been awarded all sorts of national and international prizes and medals, including the Bharat Rathna, the highest civilian award in India and the French Legion of Honour. On January 8 of this year, she tested positive for Covid-19, initially with mild symptoms. She was discharged from the intensive care unit at Mumbai’s Breach Candy Hospital in late January after recovering from pneumonia, but was back there on February 5 after her condition worsened. She died the next day and her nephew performed the last rites.
The singer was cremated with full honors in Mumbai’s Shivaji Park on Sunday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended her funeral, as did Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Kahn. The players of the Indian national cricket team wore black armbands at their match on Sunday. Thousands gathered outside Mangeshkar’s home in south Mumbai, where police barricaded streets and directed traffic while political leaders and Bollywood figures flocked to the scene. The government imposed two days of national mourning, and the flags are at half-mast. The nightingale now sings in a different sphere, but her voice resonates in thousands of Indian films and on 30,000 sound carriers for eternity.