By Bedika
Cinema journalists get to interview celebrities every now and then but not too many care to ask about what we think.
“Aapko kaisa laga?” That was Lata Mangeshkar actually asking me for my opinion on her last released song! And here was the singing legend herself, one of India’s biggest names ever, asking my opinion.
This was in October 2021, four months before Mangeshkar’s death in a Mumbai hospital on February 6 and days after the release of her last song.
“Namaskar,” the famous voice greeted me over the phone when I joined the call, perhaps a little too enthusiastically, with a “Hello Ma’am. I am a huge fan”.
After all, one does not get to speak to Lata Mangeshkar every day, especially when she has semi-retired from public life after almost eight decades and 25,000 songs in 36 Indian languages.
But there wasn’t even a hint of arrogance as she responded to my overeager, nervous fan greeting. “Arre nahin, thank you, thank you,” she said.
The occasion was the release of Theek Nahi Lagta, a Vishal Bhardwaj-Gulzar composition found after two decades and released on her 92nd birthday on September 28, 2021.
I was initially asked to just send in five questions and was promised voice notes in return. I submitted the questions, convinced the interview may not happen at all.
After almost 10 days, I got a call saying I could speak to her directly. My first reaction was an imaginary kick to myself for not putting more thought into the questionnaire I had prepared.
The interview lasted just 10 minutes. But for me, the journalist and the fan, it was enough.
Mangeshkar spoke slowly, emphasising each phrase, recalling stories of working with Gulzar and Bhardwaj in great detail.
Mangeshkar, who sang Mora Gora Ang Layle from 1963’s Bandini, Gulzar’s first as a songwriter, praised the lyricist.
The ‘melody queen’, who first collaborated with Bhardwaj during Gulzar’s 1996 directorial Maachis, said she was initially not sure about working with the composer when he was just starting out. But Bhardwaj eventually won her over with music.
“Gulzar sahab writes well and the whole country knows it…. When I met Vishal, I was a little scared as I did not know his music but I liked his very first song,” Mangeshkar recounted in Hindi.
Many of her songs could not see the light of day, she said without any regret, going on to explain that any track was subject to the mercy of the vagaries of the film world.
Sometimes the song did not fit the situation, or had to be cut because of the length, she said. If the film did not release, there were issues with the rights, Mangeshkar pointed out.
When she wanted to explain a particular point to me, she would begin with a gentle, “Nahin kya hota hai ki (No, what happens is)” or “Dekhiye baat ye hai (What happens is…)”.
I asked whether the lines “Meri awaaz hi pehchan hai” from the song Naam Gum Jaayega in the film Kinaara, directed by Gulzar, had any connection with her own towering career. Mangeshkar went on to narrate the story of the day she recorded the song.
“Gulzar also speaks beautifully. When I was singing (this song), he came to me and gently said, ‘Meri awaaz hi pehchan hai aur ye hai pehchan’. He said something like this. But later, I also started saying that ‘my voice is my identity’,” she recounted.
Asked what were the songs or musicians she liked listening to, her playful reply was, “Dekhiye agar main aapko ye bataungi to gadbad ho jayegi (It will cause trouble, if I tell you).”
In the next moment, however, she went on to talk about her fondness for compositions by Sajjad Hussain and Khayyam.
Mangeshkar worked with Hussain on a number of films, including Hulchul (1951) that featured Aaj mere naseeb ne mujhko rula rula diya, Sangdil (1952) – Woh to chale gaye aye dil and Dil mein sama gaye sajan, and Rustom Sohrab (1963) – Aye dilruba nazarein mila.
Her memory was razor sharp, the passage of decades doing little to dull the remembrances of the songs and their details.
With Khayyam, her collaboration through many decades included Heer Ranjha, Kabhi Kabhie and Trishul.
The call then got disconnected and was patched again for one last question: Before I could ask anything, she listed her other favourite composers.
“Now that we are talking about music, I want to say this,” she began and named Shankar-Jaikishen, Madan Mohan, Jaidevji, Laxmikant-Pyarelal, SD Burman, RD Burman, and Naushad. “Ye log ne na, main aapko bataati hoon, inhone raaj kiya hai (These composers have ruled the hearts of many, I tell you).”
She also named AR Rahman while observing that he was not composing as frequently as he used to.
“I like his music style,” she said.
Mangeshkar mentioned laiyaraaja, among her favourites.
She ended her reply with, “I don’t know the new music directors but I pray that they excel but I told you about the ones that I worked with and liked.”
Then she remembered I had to ask that one remaining question. “Aapka kya prashn hai aakhiri? (What’s your last question?)”
My question was whether she still remembered the little girl she was when she started her musical journey at the age of 13 now that she had travelled so far in life.
“I remember the long journey and that little girl is still with me and she is still that young,” was her reply.
As far as people equating her to goddess Saraswati was concerned, Mangeshkar credited her fame to God, her parents, Sai baba and her family deity Mangesh.
“It is their blessing that people like whatever I sing. Otherwise who am I? I am nothing. There have been better singers than me and some of them are not even with us. I am grateful to god and to my parents for whatever I have today.”
The conversation ended with an exchange of thank yous on both sides. The memory of this interview, my first and last with her, will stay with me forever. Like her songs.