The bond of music: Lata sets the record straight

In fact, the title of the chapter itself, `Suratle nate, natyatle sur’ (Relations in music, music in relations) is lyrical and establishes their bonds with the elder sister refusing to go to school, because she couldn’t take Asha along.

The reason? Asha was too young, said the school master. Asha in her youth is described as a feisty girl, who wouldn’t want to be caught stealing cream, though the milk on her feet gave her away.

“We never expected her to be a singer,” says Lata Mangeshkar even as her tomboy sister spent her time parading the local boys at Nana Chowk around 1946-47, blossomed into a wilful woman and married at the age of 14!It is here that the Nightingale of India talks about the anger of the family and admits that she had beaten Asha who then left home. “The family was angry with her. Asha went to live in Borivli and our relations were strained for years,” Lata reminisces. None of these anecdotes have embellished the characters on the screen.

Again, Lata did not give Asha her break in cinema, as the film would like us to believe. “After a few years, I heard that Asha had started singing playback,” says Lata adding that the two sisters had sung together in 1943. Despite meeting a few times in the studios, the two sisters rarely talked to each other. The presence of Asha’s husband, Ganpat Bhonsle outside the studio, stopped them. The strife in Asha’s marital life is mentioned gently when Lata discovers that despite working, Asha had not a penny in her purse.“We learnt from outsiders that after recording three to four songs every day, he ordered her around in the night to cook his delicacies. Really, Asha had been betrayed,” Lata writes. “Her guilt over leaving home, kept her from confiding,” reads the chapter.

While admitting that Asha has reached an epitome of versatility, Lata reminds readers of a time when “you wouldn’t recognise her voice…yet Asha herself said that she listened to the voices of Shamshad Begum and Geeta Dutt and decided that she had to change her style.”

Taking care to avoid envious comparisons Lata remarks that while Asha can sing songs with a western touch or semi-classical qawwali, very well as they suit her voice. She also credits her brother, Hridaynath for bringing out the best in Asha especially in the film, Sangte Aika. R D Burman and O P Nayyar were two of the best things that ever happened to Asha, says Lata singling out jaayi aap kahan jayenge and yeh hai reshmi zulfon ka as her favourite O P Nayyar numbers. While advising Asha to be a bit more `choosy’ in her songs, she says, “there is no need to sing songs simply because you can sing.”

Though unhappy about her recent Marathi shows with Hridaynath, she puts it shrewdly, “these are a bit too frequent. This will erode the anticipation element of the show”.

Asha shortcoming, says Lata, is her imagination which runs wild, though she refuses to mention what she exactly means by it. “She takes small things to heart. But her temper cools just as it rises,” is all she says. Lest there be any doubt anywhere, she rounds it off saying, “Of course, because we are sisters, this may sound false. But I have been true in what I have said."