Colombo, February 8 (newsin.asia): Legendary Indian singer Lata Mangeshkar’s death shook many fans all over South Asia, where she had a massive fan following.
Among her many fans are Pakistan’s celebrities. Prime Minister Imran Khan took to Twitter to mourn the loss and said with her death, “the subcontinent has lost one of the truly great singers the world has known”. Actor Mahira Khan posted a photo on Instagram of a young Mangeshkar and declared that there will never be another.
Bilal Maqsood shared his rendition of ‘Ajib Dastan Hai Yeh’ from the 1960s film Dil Apna Aur Preet Parai to pay tribute to the late singer. “You were the voice to my every feeling in this world,” wrote actor Samina Peerzada. “You will live in my memories and in my heart forever till eternity. Rest in power in the new realm.”
Actors Osman Khalid Butt and Saba Qamar also tweeted about Mangeshkar, paying tribute to the legacy of music she leaves behind. Actor Ushna Shah believes Mangeshkhar made the world a better place with her music. Cricketer Babar Azam also tweeted about Mangeshkar and how her death is the “end of a golden era.”
“Rest In Peace Srimathi Lata Mangeshkar, India’s Queen of Music who touched billions of hearts through her golden and unparalleled voice. A legend whose memory will remain in our midst for centuries through her melodious voice,” President Gotabaya Rajapaksa said in a Twitter message.
Taking to his official Facebook page, Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa said he was deeply saddened to hear of the passing away of Mrs. Latha Mangeshkar, a popular singer who has been captivating thousands of local and international audiences for over seven decades.
The President respectfully recalled that Latha Mangeshkar, who has made a significant contribution to the field of Indian music by appearing in the hearts of fans as the ‘Kokilaviya’ of Indian songs, giving her voice in Sinhala to the song ‘Sri Lanka .. Ma Priyadara Jaya Bhoomi’ in the film ‘Seda Sulan’ is one of the greatest contributions given to the Sri Lankan film industry.
“Her demise is an insurmountable void in the field of music itself,” the President said expressing his deepest condolences to the bereaved family, to the people of India and to all her fans.
Sheikh Hasina’s message
Lata Mangeshkar’s demise has created a “great void in the subcontinent’s musical arena”, Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said on Sunday as she condoled the death of the “empress of music”. In a message of condolence, Hasina said Mangeshkar will remain alive forever in the hearts of the people in the region through her work.
“A great void has been created in the subcontinent’s musical arena with the demise of the ‘Sur Samraggi (empress of music)’,” the prime minister said, praying for the salvation of the departed soul and conveying her deep sympathy to the bereaved family.
Bangladeshi Commentator Syed Badrul Ahsan wrote in BDNews24.com
Lata Mangeshkar was part of our boyhood, our early youth and of course our adulthood. Her songs shaped to a very large extent our understanding of music, the rich tapestry of melody that has always been the South Asian heritage. Be it her Urdu and Hindi songs or those mellifluous Bengali explorations of the heart, Lata was always with us.
One of my earliest memories of Lata’s songs was her rendition of aayega aayega aane wala from the movie Mahal. My mother loved it and so did we. In my sixties, the song, when I tune in to it, transports me back to the days when, in bed with recurrent bouts of typhoid, I felt it touch me in a way nothing else would, or could. And as the years passed, with the radio playing songs from all across the subcontinent — India, Pakistan and a future Bangladesh — it was Lata whose dominance was a prime factor in our comprehension of melody. Towards the end of the 1960s, on the annual Binaca Geetmala programme of what then was the Ceylon Broadcasting Corporation, milti hai zindago mein/mohabbat kabhi kabhi wafted along on the ether, to touch the depths of the soul in us.
But then, Lata always went deep into our souls, even in her projections of melodic sadness. In the song hai jiya roye, which again is a song I have listened to since the early 1960s, you detect the heart slowly shattering into pieces in a woman from whom love has taken flight. The song, in the deepening hours of the night, echoes through the streets and indeed through the world, to inform us that the heartbreak is in all of us. But if Lata sings of heartbreak, she can also be a voice of defiance in defence of love, a task she does remarkably well in the Mughal-e-Azam classic song pyar kia to darna kya. Lata’s rendition and Madhubala’s dance systematically diminish the man that is Emperor Akbar. What more can you want when rebellious love knows no frontiers?
In the 1950s, the actress Nimmi lipsed the soul-stirring tum na jaane kis jahan mein kho gaye from Lata. Add to that O aasman wale and what you have is a clear observation of the versatility which was Lata’s forte. Passion was a sentiment she brought into powerful play in such songs as naino mein badra chhaye and lag ja gale ke phir/ye haseen raat ho na ho. Or move on to that inimitable number, ye sama sama hai ye pyar ka/kisi ke intezar ka. The sublimity of romance, whether in its tragic notes or gaiety of expression, led Lata Mangeshkar to newer shores of melody. In mera saaya saath ho ga/tu jahan jahan chale ga, love comes across as an inevitability in the same way that hum ne dekhi hae/un ankhon ki mehekti khushboo does. The invitation to the lover, drawing him closer to the beloved, is what Lata sings of in aaja piya tohe pyar duun. And then she moves a step further, holding out her arms for the lover to lose himself in. Think of baahon mein chale aao.
In the movie Guide, a liberated Waheeda Rehman breaks into the cheerful Lata rendition of kaanto se cheer ke ye anchal. And good cheer bursts through tu ne o rangeele kaisa jadoo kiya. The heights of romance, in all their ethereal quality, are perhaps best reached in that unforgettable Pakeeza song, mausam hae aashiqana/ae dil kaheen se un ko aise mein dhoond laa na. You almost feel the heart throb in the beautiful woman as through the intensity of her song she waits for her lover to make his way to her. At another end, in the movie Adalat, a broken Nargis calls forth our pity with the Lata number, un ko ye shikayat hae ke hum/kuchh nehi kaehte/apni to ye aadat hae/ke hum kuchh nehi kaehte.
Lata Mangeshkar’s repertory extended seamlessly into the world of Bengali melody. Such songs as asharh srabon mane na to mon, sung by our mothers’ generation, is a heritage we have kept alive in our times. That Lata’s greatness is enduring is evidenced by latter-day artistes like Shreya Ghoshal and Anuradha Paudwal crooning her songs for a latter-day generation of music-obsessed young men and women. The song brishti brishti brishti, picturised on a young Aparna Sen, transports us back to our days of blossoming romance. In shaat bhai champa jago re we will our mothers to come alive, in that metaphorical sense, for they were in endless infatuation with this song.
The sense of wonder, and it has been there for decades, at listening to akash prodeep jole and prem ek bar eshechhilo nirobe, is what it was when initially Lata came to us over the radio with such coruscating music. Remember na jeyo na rojoni ekhono baki? Recall ja re urhe ja re pakhi? And nijhum shondhae? The list is unending. The bigger reality is that Lata’s songs build a bridge between past and present, threading the way to the future. Guzra hua zamana aata nehi dobara/hafiz khuda tumhara pulls us back to the past and then comes level with our present.
The duets which Lata sang with such stalwarts as Mohammad Rafi, Hemant Kumar, Mukesh, Kishore Kumar, Talat Mahmood and others remain the epitome of high romance in not just melody but in the quotidian lives we lead, the lives to which we try adding a dash of soul-filling music and so giving them a little more of substance. Sit back, look out the window, and reflect on the stirrings in your heart which once such duets as aap ne yaad dilaya/to mujhe yaad aaya gave rise to.
Perhaps the time you serenaded the young woman next door with the Lata-Rafi number, tere husn ki kya taarif karun/kuch kaehte hue bhi darta huun will rekindle the old passions in you. The young woman went missing ages ago, which heartbreak makes you hear, across and beyond the ancient mountains, the strains of dekh liya maine/kismat ka tamasha dekh liya/ik aag lagi ik aag bujhi/ankhon ne meri kya dekh liya.
Poetry and music endure beyond time. Poets and song-makers delve deep into the souls of men and women across the generations, even centuries. Long after these individuals, having enriched our collective emotions, having added to our poetic and melodic sensibilities, pass on to the Great Beyond and into the region of starlight, we recite their verses and sing their songs. And thus does the landscape of heritage become expansive. Thus does legacy lengthen itself, to touch new frontiers.
Lata Mangeshkar, her tryst with Earth concluded, touches a new frontier through her passing. And we celebrate her in her songs, in the fullness of joy she transmitted to our homes and to our hearts since the very first day she sang in a beautiful land of veritable musical spirituality called India.
Lata’s was closely knit with Bengali culture/BDNews24.com
Over the course of her career, she sang in 36 languages. Lata gave her immortal voice to many Bengali songs including playback recordings for films and other releases that carved out an eternal place in the hearts of the Bengali audience. She also sang Tagore songs as well.
The singer performed around 200 playback songs for Bengali movies, including ‘Prem Ekbar Eshechhilo Nirobe’, ‘Rongila Bashita’, ‘Nijhum Shondhyay’, ‘Ke Prothom Kachhe Eshechhi’, ‘Sat Bhai Champa’, ‘Ja Re Ure Ja Re Pakkhi’, ‘Bolchhi Tomar Kane’ and ‘Chole Jete Jete Din Bole Jay’.
Noted music composer and singer Hemanta Mukherjee was the first to get Mangeshkar to sing Bengali songs. Salil Chowdhury was another music director who composed some of the timeless Bengali songs sung by Mangeshkar. She also sang tunes directed by eminent music directors Satinath Mukherjee and Sudhin Dasgupta.
Hemanta Mukherjee was her most common collaborator in Bengali music. It is said that her first Bengali record was ‘Prem Ekbari Eshechhilo Jibone’, which was composed by Mukherjee. The song, penned by Gauriprasanna Majumdar has endured and is still beloved.
Kanai Lal, a record collector and researcher of West Bengal, said Mangeshkar recorded several songs, written by Gouriprasanna Majumder, for the 1952 Marathi movie ‘Amar Bhoopali’.
In 1953, she sang Rabindrasangeet duets ‘Modhu Gondhe Vora’ and ‘Tomar Holo Suru’ with Hemanta.
‘Hridoy Amar Nachere’ and ‘Shaono Gogone’ are two more Tagore songs she sang the same year in the film ‘Bou Thakuranir Haat’. In Satinath’s tunes, she recorded two songs in 1956.
Lata Mangeshkar had a close relationship with Hemanta Mukherjee’s family. Mukherjee helped her to learn the Bangla language as well. He was the one who introduced her to singing Tagore songs for the first time.
‘O Palash, O Shimul’ was a song composed by Hemanta Mukherjee and written by Gauriprasanna Majumdar in 1958, that became very popular.
Mangeshkar also gave voice to many Bengali songs composed by Salil Chowdhury, another legendary music composer. The song ‘Na Jeo Na’ came out in 1959 and was a hit. Shailendra wrote a Hindi song using the same tune composed by Chowdhury which Mangeshkar sang playback for in the Hindi movie ‘Parakh’ in 1960.
‘O Sat Bhai Champa,’ was another Bengali song by Mangeshkar that has been well known since the beginning of the 1960s. Salil Chowdhury wrote the lyrics and composed the song as well.
‘O Mor Moyna Go,’ composed by Chowdhury and sung by Mangeshkar remains a popular standard for contemporary singers.
The song ‘Akash Pradip Jole,’ which was composed by Satinath Mukherjee was another of Mangeshkar’s Bengali hits. It was recorded in 1956. The same record included another Bengali song ‘Koto Nishi Gechhe’. Both were penned by Pabitra Mitra.
Another eminent Bengali music composer who worked with the singer was Sudhin Dasgupta. Mangeshkar sang playback on ‘Aj Mon Cheyechhe,’ a song composed by him for the movie ‘Shankhabela in 1966. The song remains a favourite among younger musicians.
Hemanta Mukherjee worked as music director for the movie ‘Manihar’ in 1965. Mangeshkar performed the song ‘Nijhum Sondhaya Pantha Pakhira’ – an iconic Bengali song – for the film. The song was written by Pulak Bandhopaddhaya.
‘Ashar Srabon Mane Na Mon’ is another tune from the same movie that is known by every Bengali.
A duet by Lata Mangeshkar and Hemanta Mukherjee as also quite popular. The original song in Marathi was composed by Mangeshkar’s brother, music composer Hridoynath Mangeshkar. The Bengali song, based on the same tune, was written by Salil Chowdhury and called ‘De Dol Dol Dol’. Both the Bengali and Marathi duets were hits.
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