Lata Mangeshkar, the legendary playback singer known as the Nightingale of India, dies at 92

Lata Mangeshkar, one of India's biggest cultural icons and a singer who defined music and melody for generations of her countrymen and beyond, has died at the age of 92.

The singer was admitted to the Breach Candy Hospital in Mumbai in early January this year after testing positive for COVID-19 and contracting pneumonia. Though her symptoms were initially mild, she was treated in the ICU and was recovering slowly. On Jan 28, she was taken off the ventilator after showing signs of improvement, but began deteriorating again on Feb 5 and later died.

 

The world of Bollywood - where movies were unthinkable without at least six songs and where everything from romance to grief was narrated with the help of a ballad - was where Mangeshkar cut her teeth and later made her name.

Mangeshkar’s career spanned nearly eight decades and saw her picking up a host of accolades, including the titles ‘The Nightingale of India’ and ‘Queen of Melody’.

India has declared two days of national mourning to commemorate the singer, ANI reports. She will also be given a state funeral.

The Indian army has provided a truck to carry the last remains of Mangeshkar from Prabhu Kunj to Shivaji Park in Dadar. A stage is being built at the park ground to present her remains so people can pay to pay their final respects to the departed singer. This honour was last given to Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray.

Mangeshkar received three National Film Awards for her work and the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, Indian cinema’s highest honour, in 1989. In 2001 she became only the second vocalist to receive the Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian award of India. She was also awarded the Padma Vibhushan and Padma Bhushan.

Mangeshkar was equally popular among multiple generations in Bangladesh. She carved out a special place in the hearts of the Bangla language audiences, singing playback on around 200 songs for Bengali movies, including ‘Prem Ekbar Eshechhilo Nirobe’, ‘Rongila Bashita’, ‘Nijhum Shondhyay’, ‘Ke Prothom Kachhe Eshechhi’, ‘Sat Bhai Champa’, ‘Ja Re Ure Ja Re Pakkhi’, ‘Bolchhi Tomar Kane’ and 'Chole Jete Jete Din Bole Jay'. Famed musician Naushad Ali had said that he had never seen a musical talent like hers.

“Once in a lifetime, someone arrives who has been directly blessed by God. Lata was such a person,” he said.

Indian President Ram Nath Kovind, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and many others took to social media to pay tribute to the departed legend and reminisce about her impact on their lives, Indian music and the film industry.

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has also expressed her condolences at the passing of the singer.

Mangeshkar was also known for her performances of several immortal ghazals composed by Madan Mohan, another legendary Indian music director of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.

Classics like ‘Aap Ki Nazron Ne Samjha’, 'Bairaan Neend Na Aye', and 'Mai to Tum Sang Nain Mila Ke,' came about due to the collaboration between Mohan's enchanting music and Mangeshkar's equally captivating voice.

THE SONGBIRD OF INDIAN CINEMA

Mangeshkar was born on September 28, 1929, in Madhya Pradesh to a family steeped in the arts. Her father Deenanath Mangeshkar was a singer, actor and producer of Marathi language musical plays.

She never married, but is survived by four younger siblings - Asha Bhosle, Usha Mangeshkar, Meena Khadikar and Hridaynath Mangeshkar – all of whom are well-known singers in their own right.

Mangeshkar’s family moved to Bombay (now Mumbai) after the death of her father, where she became involved in the film industry as an actor. But she was not a fan of being in front of the camera and had little success.

"I never liked it - the make-up, the lights. People ordering you about, say this dialogue, say that dialogue, I felt so uncomfortable," she later told interviewer Nasreen Munni Kabir.

She instead became a playback singer, a dubbed voice who provided the vocals for the actresses on the silver screen.

“The day I started working as a playback singer, I prayed to God: ‘No more acting in films,’” she said. “He listened to me and I got a fairly good position in playback singing.”

Her first full song came in the film ‘Mahal’ in 1949 and drew immediate attention. She was known for her extraordinary range – she could sing in four octaves – and had a gift for tailoring her voice and

It was a golden period for Bollywood and Mangeshkar proved to be pivotal to the industry. Over the next four decades, she sang in such films as ‘Pakeezah’, ‘Majboor’, ‘Awaara’, ‘Mughal e Azam’, ‘Shree 420’, and ‘Aradhana and Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge’, the Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol vehicle that ran for a record-breaking 20 years in cinemas.

Mangeshkar sang for every female star, from Madhu Bala in the 1940s to Kajol in the 1990s, and alongside top male singers, including Mohammad Rafi and Kishore Kumar. Her records sold in the tens of thousands and her back catalogue of some 30,000 songs spanned a swathe of genres and 36 languages.

She was also beloved as an Indian cultural icon. India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, teared up when she sang a tribute to the slain Indian soldiers of the 1962 war with China at a public meeting.

And she even performed with her sister - leading playback singer, Asha Bhosle - on occasion, despite the tensions that could have risen from their parallel careers.

"We're very close - we have never competed with each other," Asha told the BBC in 2015. "There's a lot of love between us and I thoroughly enjoy singing with her."

She was also daring enough to challenge the male singers of the time – such as Mohammed Rafi and was the first female singer to demand better pay and royalties.

"I am a self-made person. I have learned how to fight. I have never been scared of anyone. I am quite fearless. But I never imagined I would get as much as I have," she once said.

After the passing of Mangeshkar, tribute poured in on social media.

Oscar- and Grammy-winning Indian musician AR Rahman, tweeted: "Love, respect and prayers.” Mangeshkar sang a number of his award-winning songs.

Classically trained, Mangeshkar moulded her voice to the demands of singing for Bollywood movies, even voicing songs in her 60s for an actress who was in her 20s.

Her songs motivated millions of Indians during wars with China and Pakistan to pay homage to the defence forces. Some of her songs are used as prayers in temples, shrines and schools.

"My voice is a gift from God," she once told an interviewer. "I learned to emote through my voice. When I sang a lullaby, I became a mother, when it was a romantic song, I was a lover."

The only songs she refused to sing were cabaret numbers and songs that had bawdy or racy lyrics, saying in later interviews those did not fit with her personal values. Mangeshkar nevertheless dominated the Hindi film industry until the 2000s, along with her younger sister Asha Bhosle.

Mangeshkar's detractors accused her of using her Bollywood clout to limit the entry of newcomers. Her influence was such that Mumbai authorities in 2006 scrapped a planned highway flyover after she objected that it would disturb her privacy.

Known for soft-spokenness and wearing a sari, her hair in two schoolgirl-like braids, Mangeshkar was awarded France's highest civilian honour, the Legion of Honour, in 2009.

Mangeshkar was known for her range — she could sing in four octaves — and her gift for singing in character, tailoring her voice and emotions for the actress she was voicing onscreen.

“Music is incomplete without your voice," actor Amitabh Bachchan said of Mangeshkar in 2019, commemorating her 90th birthday. "It has done the work of saints.”

[With details from PTI, The Times of India, Reuters and The New York Times]