Page 6 - Seniorstoday February 2022 Issue

Cover Story

A timeless icon called Lata

Narendra Kusnur traces the late singer’s early days leading up to her un-
forgettable performances across genres, which exhibited her
extraordinary genius

With superhits like ‘Yeh Zindagi Usiki Hai’ as she had seven solo songs, besides the
and ‘Mohabbat’ Aisi Dhadkan Hai’, the 1953 brilliant duet ‘Jaag Dard-e-Ishq Jaag’
movie Anarkali was yet another landmark with Hemant Kumar. Looking back at
in Lata Mangeshkar’s early career. The her career, incidents like these add to her
truth is that she may not have got the film legendary status.
at all. Initially, Vasant Prakash was hired
to compose the music, and he had assigned
Geeta Dutt to sing all songs. Following
some differences with the producers, music
director C. Ramchandra was brought in
his place, and he insisted only Mangeshkar
would sing his compositions. The rest,
undoubtedly, is history.
She was already a successful playback The film ‘Barsaat’ was a career changer for Lata
singer at that time, with hit songs in Mangeshkar, who passed away at
Barsaat, Mahal, Naujawan, Tarana, Anand Mumbai’s Breach Candy Hospital on
Math and Baiju Bawra. But after Barsaat, February 6, leaves behind a treasure
this was another total Mangeshkar show, trove of memories and anecdotes, besides

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