Millions of people all over the world love to read any thing and every thing written about Lata Mangeshkar, the nightingale of India who has the purest of voices and an amazing skill of emoting. The
author of this book, Harish Bhimani, got a life time opportunity to accompany her and present
stage shows held in New York, West Indies France, Canada and South America.While presenting stage shows and travelling he looks for the real person that Lata is. At the very beginning of the book, while flying in the ‘economy’ class with all other members of the group, the author realises that his search has begun to yield results. Least expected, Lata steps out from her ‘executive’ class and talks to each and every member. Her modest namaskar, her enquiries and her jovial small talk captivate even the
readers of the book. After 22 hours of flying they reach Washington in the night. Next morning was for rehearsals. Does a
singer, who has given hundreds of shows and who has sung so many songs that even Guinness Book took notice, need rehearsals? Needed or not, but Lata always has them. She rehearses and always exchanges opinions even with her juniors. The author creates a word picture of the show held in The John F. Kennedy Centre for Performing Arts. The songs, the way Lata rendered them and the impact they created leave the readers enchanted. As the author, every now and then, gains time to spend with Lata, he learns of her childhood. Lata’s father was a great stage actor and a singer. With his handsome looks he played male as well as female roles. When Lata was born on 29 September 1929, her father was at the peak of his glory. When he sat for his riyaz (practice), little Lata watched and heard him keenly. Once, when she was hardly six, she corrected her father’s pupil’s
singing. Her father now began to tutor her. Lata’s games with her siblings became more and more music related. When she was just seven, she substituted an ill artist and drew everyone’s attention. Now, she began to also sing in her father’s concerts. Then the bad times arrived. Her father lost quite a lot of glory and wealth. The family now became poor but Lata was getting richer in her classical singing.. Lata’s father died and the burden to eke out a livelihood fell on eleven year old Lata. She had just then started singing for films. She now had to depend on it for her family’s sustenance. In those times singing for films meant also acting in them. For her first film made in 1942 Lata sang in the Marathi language while her first song for a Hindi film was in1942. Picking bits and pieces from Lata’s life, the author continues to write about the tour and about his search of the true Lata. At Detroit, Lata was a little disturbed remembering how, a few yeas back, her co-singer Mukesh had died leaving the show to be taken over by his son Nitin. The audience gave her repeated and prolonged ovations. In Paris Lata lived like a lark shopping and wearing the then modern Salwar Kameez. The travel continued. With each show the author learnt more and more of Lata that he shares with the readers of this book. From the comprehensive filmography, one learns that Lata has been singing for five generations of music directors, one sees the lists of films in which Lata acted, sang and composed music. It lists her various achievements and awards. The book also sets
right a few of the misinformation created by sensation crazy media and mischief mongers. For instance the readers will know the truth of why Lata has never sung for the popular music director O.P.Nayyar, why Lata and yet another great singer Mohammed Rafi stopped for some time singing with each other, and how much true is the accusation that, to keep her monopoly intact, Lata stunted and nipped in the bud careers of all other singers. The book is enriched with several photographs, some of them rare and out of private collection. In one of them the readers can see Lata’s simplicity and her enchanting long tresses. It brings outthe humanitarian side of Lata’s stage shows in raising funds for good causes and specially touching is the event when, holding the terminally ill little Sarah Whiting, in her arms Lata showed to the Canadian audience how her smile teaches the world the secrets and joys of life. In a rarest of rare reference to the secret of her‘success’ Lata says that it is not sufficient to sing just the right notes an dthe right beats. Nor is it sufficient to understand the techniques of the mike and render the right emotions to go with the right lyrics she has to sing with her entire self. A song must affect her total self. When this stops happening she’d quit singing. Lata and give up singing? It is impossible to even imagine. For, even at the ripe age of 75,she continues to sing and mesmerise people. She continues to lend voice to heroines who are in their teens and twenties. She also continues to be humble and unassuming. She’s truly a godly gift to the mankind.
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