NEW DELHI, Oct 23: ``Bruce Willis, aur unki wife kaun hain?'' It is an odd question given that Willis' current marital status only allows for an estranged wife. But for the sake of Asha Bhosle you assume it is Demi Moore. All this is important as India's biggest singing sensation abroad tells you that, on a recent trip to Dubai, her handprint was cast beside the great stars in none other than the recently-inaugurated Planet Hollywood there.``I have never been honoured by the Government of India but in Dubai, I was bestowed this honour,'' says Bhosle. Further, she is proud that for 18 hours, a selection of her songs, from the over 12,000 that she has recorded, was played on the local FM channel during her visit. ``It is not something that will happen to me in India.'' But none of this has put her off the country. ``I can choose to go and live anywhere but I love my country and the people of the country love me and that is enough to keep me here.''Clad in a white silk saree with an embroideredPashmina shawl draped stylishly around one shoulder, Asha Bhosle (or Ashaji, if you will) is content to represent her culture to the pop generation anywhere. Having wowed the world, the matriarch of pop music will return to perform live in Delhi after more years than she can remember. ``It was many, many years ago,'' she strains to recall the last time. ``I think it was around the time S D Burmanji died.''Then it was a live show that also included ``didi'' in the ranks. But now Asha Bhosle has definitely moved out of the shadow of Lata Mangeshkar. More young people now know Asha Bhosle than any other singer of her generation. Her recent film hits include songs from Satya and Pyar Kiya To Darna Kya, but it's her Sixties hits like Parde Mein Rahne Do and Aage bhi Jaane Na Tu that the Generation Y is humming.But for her it is all the same. ``After all you are still singing, there is no difference in that. The only difference is in the response.'' Now the youngpeople love her music, and it is to suit their ears that she revises her earlier songs.It is to appeal to them that she would go out to sing in English with Boy George and Code Red. ``Only the language and accent are different,'' she says, ``it is not difficult, it's like singing in Tamil.'' For her, the challenge lies in singing with a Ghulam Ali or a Hariharan. The others serve only to enhance popular appeal.The challenge has gone out of Hindi cinema songs too. The music is pre-recorded and there is no interaction between the male and female singers in a duet. ``It takes away the emotion from a song, unlike when Kishoreda and I would sing in the earlier days,'' she recalls. She loves the folk music of Nepal and Punjab, ``but no one cares about these things anymore either,'' she says. And so she sings music that people now care about.It is probably for this reason that she refuses to acknowledge any of the recent singers among her favourites. ``My favourites have always been Noorjehan andLata Mangeshkar.'' But they never influenced her singing style. ``My own singing style is very good,'' she says without sounding immodest. The woman whose range of songs include Aa Aa Aaja and the ghazals of Umrao Jaan does not shy away from the mention of the immense variety in her music either. ``It is like I wore white in Parde Mein Rahne Do but black in Yeh Mera Dil, I like all colours and the same is true of my music, it contains all the moods: of a mother, a lover, even a cabaret dancer.''
