|
|
|
Author :
Raju Bharatan
Reproduced by
: Ajay Nerurkar
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.
-- -- -- -- -- --
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Singer or Saint ?
-- -- -- -- -- --
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
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.
-- -- -- -- -- --
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Lata
Mangeshkar : A living legend...
