Lata @ 80: And Brightly Fades A Legend
In the widening gyre of material desires that threatens to envelope my everyday life, Lata offers me an oasis of serenity. To the Godless in me, she provides spiritual succour. Like she has provided to many millions before me and like she will continue to do for many years hereafter. Artists like Lata come once in a lifetime of a nation; they shape its identity, its aspirations and ultimately its culture.
As Lata enters the eight decade of her life today, we seem to take the legend in our midst for granted. She remains among the last links to that age where through sheer happenstance of history great composers, lyricists and singers came together to create magic. We take her for granted because we find her so commonly in our daily lives. There’s only a single degree of separation between Lata and us. We are only a song, a channel, a shop or a person away from Lata whether we are listening to radio, zapping channels, grocery shopping or walking down the street. Such proximity over time breeds indifference.
There are various ways to pay tribute to her today. To me the best way is to fight the indifference. To fight the proximity. To fight the insouciant reporter who throws up clips of ‘Aaj phir jeene ki tamanna hai’, ‘Kabootar jaa jaa’ or worse ‘Dil to pagal hai’ to pay tribute to her. I fear that in the collective consciousness of the current generation she might just end up as someone who overstayed her welcome. She didn’t overstay her welcome; you joined the party late.
So, as you listen to TV soundbites about Lata, here are 8 songs which haven’t bred indifference because of their familiarity. These are Lata songs from the 50s. While I will continue to debate singers and their merits with myself, I can safely say, Lata of the 50s was the best singing I have ever heard or will ever hear.
Here’s to Lata, to the magic of her voice, to the many memories that her voice bring back among all us. And, in more ways than one, here’s to the little bit of Lata that’s within all of us.
Song 1: Haye jhilmil jhilmil
Film: Lal Batti (1957)
Music: Salil
Lyrics: Majrooh
Salil’s minimal orchestration, Lata’s different taan as she starts each stanza, the way she ends each stanza, the chorus and finally, the pristine voice quality which almost makes it sound like a devotional song.
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Song 2: Surmai raat hai, sitaare hain…. Subah ka intezaar kaun kare
Film: Joru Ka Bhai (1955)
Music: Jaidev
Lyrics: Sahir
Just the way this song starts makes it remarkable. Lata hums ‘surmai raat hai…’ and then bursts out with Subah Ka Intezaar. Jaidev kept his output limited but never compromised on quality.
Song 3: Shikayat kya karoon
Film: Kundan (1954)
Music: Ghulam Mohammed
Lyrics: Shakeel
The average 50s film had the film lead sing atleast two pathos-ridden songs which needed Lata to invest requisite emotions. This could get tiresome but listen how beautifully Lata does her shikayat about life. Ghulam Mohammed did sound at times like Naushad (like in this song).
Song 4: Guzara hua zamaana
Film: Shirin Farhad (1956)
Music: S Mohinder
Lyrics: Tanveer Naqvi
Lata lamenting lost love again with Madhubala on screen. There’s a way Lata pauses through this song before ‘hafeez khuda tumhara” that epitomizes resignation and makes all the rona-dhona credible.
Song 5: Aye ri main to prem diwani
Film: Nau Bahar (1952)
Music: Roshan
Lyrics: Meera Bai (traditional bhajan)
Lata and Meera is a divine combination. This is an early example with Roshan who rarely struck a false note. There are two other versions of this song by Geeta Dutt and Vani Jairam (just for you to compare). Lata wins for me on most days but on some evenings I wonder how Geeta Dutt could do Aye Ri Main To and Mera Naam Chin Chin Choo with equal '©lan and aplomb.
And here’s Geeta Dutt’s version from Jogan (Music: Bulo C Rani). And the Vani Jairam version
Song 6: Tabiyat theek thi
Film: Mirza Sahibaan
Music: Sardul Kwatra
Lyrics: Verma Malik
One of the many unsung melodies that keep a lot of Lata bhakts enthralled. She defined a method of singing such songs that current singers can’t shake off.
Song 7: Jab raat nahin kat ti
Film: Changez Khan (1957)
Music: Hansraj Behl
Lyrics: Qamar Jalalabadi
One of my all time favorites. She’s simply incomparable here. Again, minimal orchestration and she carries the whole song on her voice touching the high notes and gliding down easily.
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Song 8: Bairan neend na aaye
Film: Chacha Zindabad (1959)
Music: Madan Mohan
Lyrics: Rajendra Krishan
Tough to talk about Lata of the 50s and not include Madan Mohan (though I have done the impossible of not having a CR and Anil Biswas). HMV might recycle the same old Madan Mohan songs into many albums but they rarely get this song in any one of them. Sometimes, I think HMV needs a consultant for choosing songs for their albums.
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From all of us here at PFC, happy birthday, Lataji.
Tags: Lata Mangeshkar Birthday
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
My best wishes to Lataji too.
A great way of giving a tribute Subrat. :-)
I remember the time when I used to listen to records at music collectors places in the 90’s ( for a different purpose ;) ) I was amazed by the simplicity and divine nature of her voice-of-the-50’s. I must have listened to almost all of her songs , then. I got recorded a few hundreds of them on cassettes and fortunately I converted a few hundreds of them in MP3. I listen to them whenever I need peace of mind.
Long live Lataji
Subrat,
Good collection.. you know what, yesterday evening, my keyboard happily started a post on Lataji’s 80th birthday, but the moment it heard the news of Mahendra Kapoor’s death, it turned sad and pale..
Pretty good compilation.. features some of my favorites.. but to add to this list (of rare songs only) here are a few personal favorites that I can recall right now. Am sure in next fifteen minutes If I do the excercise again, I will get a complete new set of songs..
Wo to chale gaye ai dil – Sangdil
Aa pyar ki baahon me aa – Chand Grahan
Man me kisi ki preet basa le – Aaraam
Hum kitna roye – Shin shina ke bablaboo
Tumhare bulaane ko jee chahta hai – Laadali
Phaili huee hai sapno ki baahein – HN 44
Kaahe manva naache hamra – Aalaap
Mila hai kisika jhumka – Parakh
Kajare badarwa re – Pati Patni
Aajari aa nindiya – Do Beegha Zameen
Wishing her a long life…
“She didn’t overstay her welcome, you joined the party late”. That was a great line.
Great tribute to a legend called Lata. She would remain immortal in her songs. Honestly to pick her best songs is like “sooraj ko roshni dikhana”. But here are some of my Lata favorites
Dheere Dheere Machal- Anupama
O Sajna Barka Baahar Aaye- Parakh
Jyoti kalash chal ke- Bhabhi ki Choodiyan
Naino Mein Bhadra Chaaye- Mera Saaya
Lag Ja Gale- Woh Kaun Thi
Tere Mera Pyaar Amar- Asli Naqli
Title song of Rajnigandha
Chori Chori Koi Aaye-Noorie
Woh Bhooli Dastaan- Sanjog
This would be like a never ending list for sure. And all i can say, as i feel lucky, that i was born in the same land, where she was born, and i am privileged to have grown up listening to her.
BTW Lata sang some wonderful songs down South also.
Nidura Pora Tammuda- From an old Telugu movie, Santanam.
Tella Cheeraku- From another Telugu movie Aakhari Poratam.
Valoyasi- From Satya, the Tamil version of Arjun, fabulous song by Ilayaraja.
Subrat: I think you know what a Lata bhakt I am! I was absolutely delighted when I saw this post. All the songs you mention are among my faourites. In fact, as a tribute to Lataji on her birthday, I did a blog on my post about her collaboration with less famous composers. Finally, I only talked about only a few of them now, leaving the others for Part 2 of the posts, but Tabiyat Theek Thi and Jab Raat Nahin Katti were my picks for Hansraj Bahl and Sardul Kwatra. If you’re interested, here is the link to that post:
http://urgetofly.blogspirit.com/archive/2008/09/26/lata-mangeshkar-songs-with-less-famous-composers.html
Incidentally, the first HMV compilation I bought – I remember Madan Mohan – included Bairan Neend Na Aaye
A excellant choice Subrat. Esp. ‘Jab raat nahin katti’ and ‘guzra hua zamaana’. The Lata song I have been humming this month ‘Raat ke rahi ruk mat jaana’. A very inspirational song.
@Subrat,
Wonderful selection of songs.
What a divine and sweet like honey, voice Lata ji had in 50s. Ofcourse masters were there to use this wonderful voice in a most wonderful manners.
Aye Ree mein to Prem Deewani – I always had heard them at different occasions and only today listened them back to back.
Was travelling since 2.5 days and was thinking that three occasions (Dev Saab, Lata Ji and Mehmood Saab) are there. I knew very well that Lata ji will defintely be covered by you and/or Pavan.
Dev Saab and Mehmood Saab are left.
Some other day through their films.
Nice tribute to Lata Ji.
An impressive tribute. The lady has a remarkable voice – there are too many to name as memorable songs but even for such a matured lady her voice has the same sweetnes as it did in the yesteryears.
Nice post … totally agree that the Lata of the 50’s was super.
While Lata is great, I think she should have stopped singing in the late 80’s – maybe after Saagar.
Her voice just sounded too old after that.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m a big fan of Lata for her 50’s to 80’s stuff … but I have a good ear for music and her voice just became sueaky old and shrill about 20 years ago …
sirji,
where were you all these years??? you joined us late too… not fair not fair…