One good deed inspires many but, there are times when criticism has managed to inspire people beyond imagination. One such incident occurred in the life of our legendary singer, Lata Mangeshkar.
Lata Mangeshkarâs father, Pandit Deenanath Mangeshkar was a classical singer and a theater actor. Lata Mangeshkar was named âHemaâ at her birth and later renamed to Lata after a female character, Latika from her fatherâs play, âBhaaw Bhandhanâ. Lata took her singing training from her father and right from the age of five, she started to work in her fatherâs musical plays. She did not pursue her studies as she was totally busy with her singing and acting.
When Lata was in her teens, her father passed away after which Lata ventured into Marathi movies as a singer. She moved to Mumbai and thatâs where she started taking lessons from Ustad Amanat Ali Khan and others. This also marked her entry into the world of Hindi films.
Though, Hindi film industry was highly dominated by Noor Jahan at the time, Lata had to struggle to find her place in the industry.
Bombay Studios was one of the leading film production studios, located in the western suburbs of Mumbai. Lata used to travel all the way to Malad along with music director Anil Biswas in a local train. One day when Lata Mangeshkar and Anil Biswas were on their way to Malad, they bumped into a young actor named Dilip Kumar.
Dilip Kumar was launched by Bombay Talkies and knew Anil Biswas very well. Thus Anil introduced Lata to Dilip, who, like many others, was fond of Noor Jahan and considered her as the benchmark for a female singer in Hindi cinema.
Anil Biswas told Dilip Kumar that this young girl (Lata) was going to sing for him. Dilip Kumar looked at Lata and asked Anil, “Where is this girl from?” Anil replied saying âShe is from Maharashtraâ. Hearing this, Dilip Kumar made a sarcastic comment âOh! In that case, her Urdu will be likedaal-chawal â. He used the âdaal-chawalâ term as a metaphor for
blandness. This did not go well with Lata Mangeshkar as she was totally devoted to her singing and the world of music. She did not utter a single word to Dilip Kumar as she barely knew him but, was fuming all the way to the recording studio.
It was at then that Lata realized that Urdu might be the major reason for Noor Jahan to have an edge over all other singers. That was when Lata decided to master Urdu. She did this with total dedication and gained her command over the Urdu language
Her mastery over Urdu began showing in her songs and Dilip Kumar, who once made fun of Lata, began recommending her for his movies. Â The rest, as we know, is history.
Fun Facts
Lata Mangeshkarâs first Hindi song was for a Marathi film âGajaabhaauâ (1943).
In the year 1957, Dilip Kumar recorded a duet with Lata Mangeshkar for Hrishikesh Mukherjeeâs film âMusafirâ. The song âLaagi Naahein Chhuteâ was composed by Salil Chowdhury who chose the well-known thumri in Raag Piloo. Dilip Kumar himself handpicked this tune and had been practicing this thumri for long hours on the sitar. But at the hour of recording Dilip Kumar shied away from recording as he was nervous to sing with Lata. Salil Chowdhury gave him a peg of brandy, after which he went ahead with it but his voice sounded weak and the result was not satisfactory.
This rivalry created bad vibes between the two and they were not on talking terms for more than a decade. Finally in the year 1970, they made up when Lata tyed a Raakhi to Dilip Kumar making him her brother. This incident was covered by a weekly magazine as a Hindu-Muslim Bhai-hai cover story.
