The Enduring Legacy of Lata Mangeshkar: India’s Beloved Nightingale

Lata Mangeshkar singing at Shivaji Park in 1960 during the Samyukta Maharashtra Movement.

The musical world beyond has been blessed with Lata Mangeshkar’s soaring voice for over a year now, but her melodies continue to move millions across all creeds, classes, genders, and castes. Her vast repertoire of over 2,000 songs in multiple languages embodies every human emotion, making her the beloved voice of India. She was trained in music by her father, but his sudden death pushed her into the world of playback singing, where her talent shone bright. Known as the nightingale of the nation, her extraordinary range and effortless rendering earned admiration not just from ordinary listeners, but also from the doyen of classical music, Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan.

In his new book, Lata Mangeshkar: A Life in Music, author Yatindra Mishra provides a unique and multilingual perspective on the singer’s life and work, as he shares conversations he had with the legend over a decade. While the book’s first half presents Mangeshkar’s journey, the second half provides her responses to a range of questions about her life and work. The book may be unusual to those unfamiliar with the popular musical traditions of India, but for her admiring listeners, it acts as a prompt to seek out and listen to those timeless songs once more.

Mangeshkar was like the gandharva of Hindu myth, a celestial being who dazzled ordinary mortals with her art, thanks to her mastery of the craft and superhuman breath control. A great mimic, she was always in tune with the emotions and mood of the scene to which her song was set. She clung to authenticity and avoided singing mawkish or patriotic songs that were inserted for mere dramatic flourish. Her relationship with her peers, including eminent personalities like lyricist-director Gulzar, is also discussed in the book, offering rare insights into the singer’s character.

Re-reported from the story originally published in https://www.hindustantimes.com/