Lata Mangeshkar, for whom age is just a number

The Voice where God lives turns 88 on September 28! I remember for some reason they had celebrated her 75th birthday with a grand bash where singers of every hue sang her songs as a tribute to the voice that has defined much more than just the melodious progression of Hindi cinema.

“74…75…what difference does it make,” she had told me after she watching adoring juniors mutilate her classics for a good 4 hours. “As long as everyone was happy.” This, with a chuckle that qualifies even her most introspective moments.

Lataji isn’t really a brooder. From the outside, she’d seem to have achieved enough to keep her in a nirvanic state of bliss for seven lifetimes. “I’m a very happy person. Nothing bothers me…nothing ever did. Even when I was going through my normal period of struggle at the beginning, I was content. I’d go out there, sing in the studios and come home and play with my dolls,” she told me a few days back.

Winning her trust isn’t easy. Once you do, she surrenders completely. Aspiring musicians have become superstar-composers only through what at one time was known as the ‘one-woman industry’ within the film industry…only to turn on her , trying to promote sub-standard talent just to thumb their nose at her.

Shankar-Jaikishan and their successors Laxmikant-Pyarelal are ‘crime’ examples. The first duo virtually piggyrode on her voice to super-success. Suddenly Shankar developed a strange passion for another singer. “She’s far better than Lata Mangeshkar,” he told the producers, in not so many words. They quickly moved on to L-P.

All was well and the new music-making duo worshipped the ground that their Didi walked on….until Laxmiji (may God rest his gifted soul) found a Lata-imitator’s voice more enticing. He brazenly began to promote the fake Nightingale and effectually killed the duo’s career.

Then, there’s this roly-poly music director who loves to wear golden jewllery and compose songs that have gaan with the wind. Some years ago, he turned around to tell Lataji’s secretary, “She’s no longer THE Lata Mangeshkar. Things have changed.”

Things have not changed. People have. The selfserving gold-diggers of the film industry jumped the gaan to believe she was gone. They’ve been trying to play down the Nightingale’s miraculous genius for over two decades now.

I remember, 30 years ago, a critic wrote that the 45-year-old Lata Mangeshkar singing for a 15-year-old Dimple Kapadia in Bobby just won’t work.

Hey, Mr Pessimist…what made Dimple Kapadia? Raj Kapoor or Lataji’s songs like Jhooth bhole kauva kaate and Chabhi kho jaaye? It will take Lata-o-logists centuries to unravel the enigma of her excruciating excellence…or the extent of her reach within the film industry.

When she was out of reach for some filmmakers, they invented doppelgangers…first Suman Kalyanpur (who got to sing chartbusters with Mohd Rafi like Aaj kal tere-mere charche and Ajahun na aaye balma saawan beeta jaye only because the original Nightingale had fallen out with him for two years)…then Chandrani Mukherjee….then Anuradha Paudwal and finally Alka Yagnik…imitators of a voice that’s as irreplaceable as the Taj Mahal. When Dharamesh Darshan couldn’t get her to sing in Dhadkan, he got her in through her voice on the radio singing Tu mere saath rahega munne from the film Trishul.

One of the most ardent LM fans in the film industry is Sanjay Leela Bhansali. “I have to listen to her at least for 3-4 hours a day. She is like that beacon of light in the darkest hour. I hold her songs very close to my heart. In one way or another, all my music scores pay a tribute to Lataji. I feel she’s the greatest artiste this country has ever produced. In every era, she has set the parameters for beauty, grace and melody. I hero-worship three people….Amitabh Bachchan, Birju Maharaj and Lata Mangeshkar.”

It would be the simplest thing in the world to say that Lataji is a phenomenon. But her talent isn’t that easy to slot or unravel. Nor is her genius easily classifiable or even observable.

I tell her how Kathak exponent Pandit Birju Maharaj is flabbergasted as to how she achieved the absolutely rare mixture of completely contrasting styles in the raas leela song Mohe panghat pe nandlal in Mughal-e-Azam.

“People ask me, ‘How did you do that particular twist in a song?’ or ‘How did you out in that bhav (emotion) in that song?’ Very frankly, I’ve no answer to these questions. I just go and sing to the best of my ability. The rest is entirely up to God,” says the Goddess of all melodious things.

Many people, including me, believe God lives in Lataji’s soul and makes His or Her way into her throat and outwards in a divine clasp. When you hear her sing a love song like Lag ja gale se (Woh Kaun Thi), Raina beeti jaye (Amar Prem) or Main janoon nahin piya se milan kaise hoyeri (Chand Grahan), you wonder which beloved she addresses the melody to. Could it be the one who created this world?

Generations and eras have passed. Her divine aura refuses to to wane.

Yash Chopra who loves his ‘Didi’ almost as much as I do couldn’t have given her and her fans a better birthday gift than Veer-Zaara. He was advised by his so-called friends and well-wishers to switch to another voice for Preity Zinta.

But Mr Chopra was adamant. “As long as I am there and she’s there, only Lataji will sing for my films.”

Every heroine from Madhubala and Meena Kumari to Aishwarya Rai and, ahem ahem, Preity Zinta, owes her career in varying degrees to Lataji’s voice. So many actresses have acquired their special legendary status through her songs: Madhubala means Ayega aanewala (Mahal) and Pyar kiya to darna kya (Mughal-e-Azam) …..Sharmila Tagore means Raina beeti jaye (Amar Prem) and Kuch dil ne kahaa (Anupama) …Madhubala, Meena Kumari and Hema Malini insisted that all their songs be sung by only Lataji. “Heroines felt they had arrived when Lataji sang for them,” says Jaya Bachchan, for whom the Nightingale sang a gallon of imperishable numbers.

Where can The Voice go now? “Honestly I don’t know how I’ve come so far, so how can I say where I’ll go now? I let God guide me wherever he wants to. I don’t question his ways.”

At 88, Lata Mangeshkar remains an awesome force to record with. As for the others, I want to go back to the prophetic words of one of the earliest Lata-bhakt composers - Sajjad Husain. “Lata sings. The others just scream.”

Even today, when she enters a social gathering, a hush descends across the room. Everyone stops to listen to the melody that she carries in her soul.