‘Whatever skills I’ve imbibed are God’s gift’

In July 2019, the late singing legend Lata Mangeshkar spoke to Subhash K Jha about her life, work, passions and the laughter that led to her being labelled ‘arrogant’. This we believe was her last extended interview to any media. This is the link to the full interview: The Lata Mangeshkar Interview

How do you assess your own career as a singer? 

If you ask me, I did okay. Achchha hai… Lekin aur bhi achchha ho sakta hai (I did well. But I could’ve done better). I’ve never stopped to admire any of my songs, ‘Wah wah kya gaana gaya hai.’

That’s not for you to say. That’s for us to say, isn’t it?

But I know what you don’t. I know the places where I’ve made mistakes in my songs. And an artiste should never be satisfied with what he or she does. There should always be hunger to excel. That fire….look at Bachchan Saab! That’s what keeps him going. No matter what your sphere of activity there must always be that hunger to do better. As a writer I am sure you also want to do better. With my songs also I always felt I could do better, even the ones that people today think perfect.

Which is the song that has given you maximum satisfaction?

(promptly) The songs that I sang for my brother (Hridayanath Mangeshkar) in the album of Meerabai bhajans Chala Vahi Des. I always feel that I’ve done justice to whatever Hridaynath gave me to do. It has been my must successful endeavour to date. I’ve also done justice to some of the compositions by Salilda (Chowdhury), Madan Mohan and Jaidev. Jaidev was the most challenging among the composers. He had a sound knowledge of classical music. He would say, ‘I’ve told her what to do. Now I don’t need to worry.’ Once he composed a song he left it to me to worry about it. It became my responsibility. And I’d be endlessly worried. I remember he had composed a Nepali song for me written by the King of Nepal, King Birendra (Jun Mato Na Mero in the Nepali film Maatighar). It was one of the toughest songs of my career.

What is your assessment of yourself as a singer?

There have been better singers than me like K L Saigal Saab and Noor Jehanji and there will be better singers than me in future. I always say whatever skills I’ve imbibed are God’s gift. I’ll also admit that it’s never been an insurmountable challenge for me to sing anything. Every artiste has a talent. What the artiste does with that talent is up to them.

Your improvisations in the songs, the harkat as it was called, often took songs to another level, for example the ‘Oye oye oye’ in the Bichua number in Madhumati?

No that wasn’t mine. That was the composer, Salilda’s idea. But yes, I did put in my own harkat once in a while. Once Rafi Saab and I were recording a duet for Shankar-Jaikishan. During rehearsals I decided to improvise at one point in the song. But I didn’t reveal my harkat during rehearsals. I kept it to myself and I sang it only during the final take.

You did not????!!!!

(laughs) Yes, I did. When the final take happened everyone was thrilled by my improvisation. But Rafi Saab was very upset. All this was in good spirit. No harm meant.

You’ve been working with three generations of music composers. Isn’t there a generation gap between you and composers like AR Rahman, Vishal Bharadwaj, Anu Malik and Jatin-Lalit?

(Firmly) Nahin. In my opinion, a singer should never be conscious of such things. Irrespective of the generations they belong to, all music composers try to do their best. As a singer, I used to enjoy the challenging compositions of the past. I admit the young music directors of today are a little scared of me. But I’ve never ever misbehaved with any composer or told him that his tune is no good or that I’ll sing it in my own way.

Why have you been called an aloof, arrogant and ruthless professional? How and why did this image come about?

Do you want to know why people are nervous of me? There’s a saying that if someone burns his mouth while drinking milk, he even tries to cool down chhaas before drinking it. In the past, I loved to laugh and make people laugh. I used to bring chocolates to the recordings and share them with everyone. People exploited my friendly nature. They maligned my name. Once, a well-known recordist kept me back to record a small interlude in a song till late at night. Only his assistant, my sister and I were at the studio, the others had left. He kept making me sing the small interlude repeatedly. After a couple of days, I heard that he was telling people, “See how I drove Lata crazy? The song was good enough as it was recorded initially.”

When I heard this, I wept. Then there was a classical musician who maligned me to his heart’s content. I treated some music directors, lyricists, producers and directors like my brothers. But they all maligned me. So, I decided to stop attending functions, I stopped talking excessively which was a habit with me. I would say things in jest. But my words would be misinterpreted and distorted. Who needs this? I thought. That’s why I prefer staying at home with my family. Now if I’m called arrogant and unsociable I don’t care. If I worry about what people have to say, then it wouldn’t be possible to continue living.