#RSReflections – Lata Mangeshkar and Me: A Personal Journey

With the passing of Lata Mangeshkar, 92, the nation loses one of its most iconic and incredible souls. Thankfully we don’t lose her voice. I didn’t know Lataji personally, but I didn’t need to. She taught me my scales, she taught me how to sing, she taught me Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, Gujarati, and so much more. 

I still remember our Telefunken record player in the living room, and one of my earliest memories was the LP we had for the film “Roti Kapda Aur Makaan”. It was an older film, but I was fascinated with the second track, “Main Na Bhoolunga”, a playful duet she sang with the late great Mukesh. When I say Lataji was the soundtrack to my childhood, I mean it.

Being a brown kid growing up in the suburbs of Philadelphia, most brown kids didn’t find a liking to Bollywood music – I used Lataji’s voice to connect to sounds that sounded so different from what I heard playing on Top 40 radio.

By the time I was four years old, I was making mixed tapes of me singing directly into the tape recorder with its attached mic, pretending I was Lataji – belting out songs like “Dafliwale Dafli Baja” from 1979’s “Sargam” and “Mere Naseeb Mein” from 1981’s “Naseeb”. The latter was a real favorite of mine. My father was a new tech fan even then – we drove all the way to Manhattan to buy a VCR in 1981, and one of the first movies we got on VHS was “Naseeb”. I watched that multi-starrer on loop, memorizing dialogues. I knew exactly where to fast forward till to get to the scene where Hema Malini lip-syncs Lataji’s hit at that revolving restaurant.

Of course, as a small kid, I asked many questions. I would ask my mother why Hema Malini, Jaya Prada and Rekha all had the same singing voice. I distinctly remember her looking at me as a child and wondering how I could pick up on that so quickly. She quickly explained the world of playback singing and then took me back to the record player and began to take out some classic LPs (the ones that either put me to sleep or they played after I went to bed). 

Here I learnt about movies and soundtracks dating back to 1953’s “Anarkali”. I was exposed to all the great soundtracks of yesteryear, including 1958’s “Madhumati”, “1960’s “Mughal-E-Azam”, 1967’s “Milan”, and more. By then, I started hearing Lataji with her many male duet partners. I was particularly excited when I realized Kishore Kumar, my other favorite, had been her long-time collaborator, and by the time we reached 1973’s “Abhimaan”, I now knew why this music was so special and what it meant to feel something beyond the usual excitement.

By the time the seventh track on the LP played, “Tere Mere Milan Ki Yeh Raina”, I was dumbfounded – I knew this song! I asked my Mom, “isn’t this the song you and Dad sing in the car?”. She smiled and nodded. While I had only heard them occasionally sing along or break out in song, it was a fact that my parents would sing at parties within the greater Philadelphia Indian diaspora. I had no idea as these were the “adult” parties that didn’t include the kids. So while I had the babysitter watching over me as I watched “The Cosby Show”, my parents were having sangeets and jam sessions!

It’s pretty evident that my love for music came from them, but while my parents’ music was a hobby for me, it was a  passion since childhood. Every movie we’d get on VHS, whether I saw the movie or liked the movie or not, I’d stand there and cue up the songs and record them. Whenever I had money or could persuade my parents at the Indian store, I wouldn’t ask for mango juice or sweets, I’d ask for a new cassette or more blank tapes. 

I would rush home after school and sit at our piano and record myself as I’d try to play the latest song (that was available) and sing my heart out like Lataji. I’d hit those high notes in unison with her because I could at the time. I began to play the old vinyl soundtracks and record them to cassette to listen to the oldies in my room later.

As time went on and we traveled more frequently to India, my passion became more of an obsession. I tracked and kept up to date with every soundtrack of every film released in Bollywood. It didn’t matter; I had to know, I had to have an opinion, and by the mid to late 1980’s it was all but assumed that if Lataji was featured (as she had begun to become more selective in her song choices), it was worth a listen. 

We first moved to India in 1987, and through 1995, I was in and out of the country on multiple stints (because of my Dad’s work). In the course of those eight years, I not only got the opportunity to connect with all the latest music and releases constantly but in a pre-internet and very new-to-India cable world, the majority of my viewing and listening experiences were limited to Doordarshan and the one national radio station.

Whether it was watching a new song like “Mere Haathon Mein” from 1989’s “Chandni” on “Chitrahaar” at 8 pm on Tuesdays and Fridays or finally seeing “Aaja Re Pardesi” from “Madhumati” on “Rangoli” on Sunday mornings, I was there. I’d wait to listen to Ameen Sayani on the weekly “Geetmala” and how many weeks “Gori Hai Kalaiyan” from 1990’s “Aaj Ka Arjun” would remain at #. Just as dedicated and devoted to Billboard Magazine and Rolling Stone – I was equally obsessed. It became my mission to know every song from the 1940s onwards and recite and remember enough that I would always be the first pick in a friendly family game of Antakshari. 

My family knew my devotion to music, and I readily agreed to perform whenever I could. Even without real training in any Indian style music until high school, I could sing any song from Kishore Kumar or Lataji and deliver it perfectly. Even as my voice changed, I still managed to hit most of those notes. Despite going to the American school, I remember performing “Kuch Na Kaho” from “1942: A Love Story” not as Kumar Sanu but as Lata Mangeshkar. 

I genuinely have Lataji to thank for the music and for giving me my Indian singing voice. Song after song, I got to understand and experience the range and diversity of her voice. She could be giggly and upbeat in one track and be melancholy and sad in another, but they’d both equally have the same ethereal power to keep you emotionally invested. She could make even some of the most mundane productions feel special and could take the silliest of lyrics and still make it sound like Urdu poetry.

There is good reason Lataji is being celebrated today and will continue to be for the rest of our time. No voice has resonated as strongly as hers in India or the entire Indian diaspora. For multiple generations of us around the world, she’s been the emotional gateway to where we come from. Celebrities have tried to go “Hollywood” for decades, but Lataji was already in the Guinness Book Of World Records since the early 1970s. Her name is known by every noted music fan everywhere because of the impact she’s made in her nearly 80-year career. 

It shouldn’t come as a surprise as she was one of the first features on a hip-hop track to become a hit with Truth Hurts’ 2002 single “Addictive” featuring Rakim. The track heavily samples 1981’s “Thoda Resham Lagta Hai” and became a global smash. There was such a sense of joy I felt hearing Lataji’s voice blasting out of car stereos and seeing folks dance to the track at clubs in New York and Los Angeles. Buoyed by the success, music companies in India decided to cash in, and for the last 20 years now, we’ve had a nonstop barrage of remakes and remixes.   More than 50% of the songs we’ve heard remade, in my estimation, were originally performed by Lata Mangeshkar.

For me, Lataji was a teacher from afar – a guide who, just by being herself, helped me to navigate my life and journey. Her music makes up a considerable part of the soundtrack of my life, and since childhood, she’s seen me through the good, the bad and the ugly. When I returned to India nearly a decade ago thinking my days were numbered because of cancer, it was  Lataji again who helped give me back my voice. At the hospital in Gujarat where I was being treated, we were required to attend a daily `sabha’ where everyone was required to sing. I had already had sung “Kal Ho Naa Ho”, but the patients and families wanted me to sing more. I did a deep dive, and suddenly Lataji’s voice encouraged me to sing again. I got the whole hospital to sing along to “O Paalanhaare” from “Lagaan” and “Ek Tu Hi Bharosa” from “Pukar” with me. 

Music is a powerful healer. It is also timeless. Lataji didn’t just entertain us; she created a musical world that we inhabit. While she’s no longer with us physically, her legacy carries. I have solace that I know anytime I sing, no matter when, no matter where her voice is there before me. And I know I’m not the only one – that’s in all our good “naseeb”.