From being cast aside by family after a teenage marriage to finding her footing with composers like OP Nayyar and RD Burman, Asha Bhosle’s story is of grit, survival, and extraordinary musical adaptability
Once the legendary composer S D Burman was getting a young Asha Bhosle to sing a song for Bimal Roy’s classic Bandini (1963). The song was to be picturised inside a woman’s jail where an inmate was singing a song filled with yearning: Ab ke baras bhej bhaiya ko baabul… In the song, the woman prisoner is remembering her mother’s home with longing, asking them to send her brother to take her back home. But Asha Bhosle was struggling to infuse the pathos and emotion behind the song.
The veteran composer then told her to delve into her own life and remember her own mother and invalid brother who she loved dearly. Asha had not seen them for a long time since her family, including her sister Lata Mangeshkar, had cast her aside since she had run away from home to get married at 16.
Asha started to cry, tears rolling down her cheeks. “Now, sing the song,” Burman told her brusquely. This incident from the turbulent early years of the life of Asha Bhosle, who breathed her last at Breach Candy hospital on April 12, is recounted by Ambarish Mishra, a Mumbai-based senior journalist. He was well-acquainted with Asha Tai, having helped her to work on her autobiography in the past, a project which was later allegedly shelved by her children.
Did Lata Mangeshkar stall her career?
In an interview with The Federal, Mishra, a veteran journalist who has covered cinema for many decades, talks about how Asha Tai went through a hard time when she left home to marry her first husband, Ganesh Rao Bhosle. “Though Asha Tai never brooded about her past, always living for the moment, she did bitterly refer to the time with her husband who treated her badly. I should not have had to go through all those tough times. Her family, including her mother, had warned her not to marry him. Her astute mother had sensed that Ganesh Rao, a private transport operator, who used to visit their home, would not treat her right. But for Asha Tai, the magic of the man was strong and she ran off with him.”
Ganesh Rao treated her badly and was abusive. They struggled to make ends meet and it did not help she became a mother soon. He made her sing and accompanied her to studios and would not part with her earnings. As a young mother at 17 years, she felt alone. Meanwhile, her elder sister Lata Mangeshkar, who was shouldering the responsibility of the family, was the reigning queen of Indian cinema being the undisputed favourite of every leading music director.
Also read: Asha Bhosle obit: The unstoppable voice of Hindi playback singing that refused to be typecast
It was a shadow that continued to haunt Lata and Asha till the end of their lives. When Asha was an aspiring playback singer trying to gain a foothold in the Hindi film industry, did Lata create obstacles in her path? Filmmaker Sai Paranjpye’s film, Saaz (1998), was based on this alleged rivalry between the two famous sisters. On this controversy, Mishra says, “I refuse to pit one sister against the other. I don’t agree with the view that Lataji tried to stall her career. To my knowledge, they were good friends and even lived next to each other.”
Never imitated Lata
In his view, there was no question of competition since Asha Tai’s voice was entirely different from Lataji’s. “It had more adaptability, an incredible range — she could weave all kinds of emotions into the tapestry of her songs. Moreover, her strong base in classical music helped her manipulate the notes with greater precision and clarity. Asha never imitated her sister. Maybe, other struggling singers at that time tried to be a Lata clone but not Asha Tai,” says Mishra, adding that for Asha, there was no question of stepping out of her sister’s shadow as far as singing was concerned. Yet, he admits Lata had a clear edge when it came to opportunities.
“From 1947 to 1967, Lata didi had all the best opportunities and songs that could have gone to Asha Bhosle. I will give you an example. There’s the song from Hare Rama Hare Krishna, Dum Maro Dum, which went to Asha since it was vibrant, vivacious and youthful. But the Phoolan Ka Taaron Ka sung by the child in the film went to Lata didi because SD Burman felt Asha did not have the right voice for it. It was a decision by the music composer and had nothing to do with any politics by her elder sister,” claims Mishra.
Also read: At 90, Asha Bhosle gears up for a milestone concert in Mumbai
He gives another example. “The famous Mora Gora Ang Lai Le in Bandini, in which Nutan prances around under the moon rejoicing that her love is blossoming, went to Lata since SD Burman thought she will do justice to that song. Music directors at that time had decided that all the best songs should go to Lata, while all the top heroines like Madhubala and Kamini Kaushal had a clause in their agreement that their songs had to be rendered by Lata, I can vouch for that,” says Mishra.
The OP Nayyar phase
Asha had to wait longer for her life to hit the high notes. It was music director OP Nayyar, who quickly realised that Asha had a vocal range that was unsurpassed and a voice that he felt he could tap for different kind of songs. According to Mishra, Asha could yodel and produce unimaginable sounds giving the example of the fast-paced rhythmic song, Aaja Aaja Main Hoon Pyar Tera, with its “O aa jaa, aah aah” segments, which required a lot of breath control.
“Banal as the word ‘versatile’ may sound, Asha’s versatility was her outstanding quality,” agrees Radha Rajadhyaksha, a senior editor and columnist and Hindi film music aficionado. “She could be soulful, poignant, romantic, whacky, free-spirited or whatever the situation called for. She was famously a mimic, and struck the perfect note for whichever actress she was singing for. Like, you almost believe it is Madhubala who is singing Aaiye Meherban (Howrah Bridge) or Haal kaisa hai janaab ka (Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi). Similarly, Asha was also a perfect fit for Helen in her cabaret songs, Zeenat Aman in Dum maaro dum (Hare Rama Hare Krishna) and even Urmila Matondkar decades later in Yai re yai re (Rangeela).”
Rajadhyaksha mentions a breezy playful duet Bhali bhali si ek soorat (Buddha Mil Gaya), a musical conversation of sorts “acted” out to perfection by Asha and Kishore Kumar, both singers known for their knack for bringing situations alive on screen. “Note the way she reacts with a sort of giggle after Kishore’s line Paas woh aayi badi ada se,” she says. “It’s so endearing and actually difficult to pull off. That must have been her addition just as the exclamation Ah! before Chhod do aanchal (Paying Guest), one of her earliest hit songs, was.”
Rajadhyaksha adds that building on this, there were entire Asha songs where there was more dialogue than singing—Mera naam hai Shabnam from Kati Patang or Sapna mera toot gaya from Khel Khel Mein—which were testimony to her acting skills. “Singers of the golden era did say a couple of dialogues in some songs but great singers though they were, they sounded a tad awkward,” she says. “Asha (and Kishore Kumar) were most natural.”
In the inevitable comparison with her sister Lata Mangeshkar, Rajadhyaksha says that while Lata, by sheer virtue of her ethereal voice, had no peer in the rendition of soulful and romantic songs, Asha scored in the light-hearted ones—which was the genre she started out in after Lata’s voice had already cast a spell on the nation. “Since Lata refused to sing cabaret and mujra numbers, those came to her,” she said. “She was typecast for a bit, but by the late 1950s was given her due by O P Nayyar and S D Burman. O P Nayyar particularly played a huge part in her success since Lata Mangeshkar never sang a single song for him, and all of them went to Asha.”
Later, says Rajadhyaksha, Asha moved very successfully out of the cabaret-mujra genre and exhibited her stunning range in all kinds of songs, eventually putting a stamp on herself as a ghazal singer par excellence with Umrao Jaan, for which she won a national award. “One decisive step Asha took towards not being compared with Lata was that she consciously sang very differently from her sister after the initial comparisons began,” she said. “She has said this often in interviews—why would anyone want a clone of Lata Mangeshkar when the original was so perfect?”.
With Nayyar choosing to work only with her, Madhubala’s coquettish Aaiye Meherban and Vyjayanthimala’s songs in Naya Daur were all sung in Asha’s throaty, sultry voice. “Nayyar refused to give Lata even one single song. This was because of their personal equation. He was completely devoted to Asha and credit to giving career breaks to Asha goes to Nayyar no doubt,” Mishra says.
However, Asha like her sister, was also full of grit, hard-working and determined to succeed. With the advent of colour films, as movies veered away from sad, mournful songs, Asha’s voice lent itself to peppy numbers being churned out in films. So, by the 1960s, Asha was singing for all the top heroines like Sharmila Tagore, Nanda, Mala Sinha and others.
Lata’s tiff with SD Burman
According to Mishra, there was another factor that helped Asha to establish her own strong legacy in Hindi cinema. “Lataji had a tiff with SD burman in 1957 after he asked her to rerecord a song. Lata flatly refused saying she did not have dates. A misunderstanding cropped up between them and Lata stopped singing for him. SD Burman then turned to Asha and added to her rich repertoire with evergreen songs like Chhod Do Anchal Zamana Kya Kahega from Paying Guest (1957), Achha Ji Main Haari Chalo, Chalo Maan Jao Na from Kala Paani (1958). Further, Asha’s career touched dizzying heights after her association with the powerhouse music composer RD Burman. He was responsible for redefining Hindi film music bringing in Bossa nova, Mediterranean music, jazz, Arabic songs into film music.
Also read: 10 eternal Asha Bhosle songs that India could never stop humming
For Mishra, after Teezri Manzil, 1966 to 1975 turned out to be the best decade for Burman and Asha Tai. Together they set celluloid on fire with songs from superhit films like Seeta aur Geeta, Jawani Diwani, Manoranjan, Anamika, which all carried a new zingy flavour. Asha, in her richly textured voice, was simultaneously displaying her ability to sing qawwalis and deeply soulful songs like the Gulzar number, Mera Kuch Samaan, from Ijaazat.
In a nutshell, Mishra sums it up: SD Burman gave her a good break, OP Nayyar shaped her career, while RD Burman took her career to new heights. “But one cannot negate the fact that Asha was a great singer herself. Both Lata and she could modulate emotions and suit their singing to fit the heroine’s persona,” he points out.
Young at heart
In all the years that he interacted with Asha, Mishra found her not to be particularly mediative or reflective. “Unlike her sister, she lived from one moment to another. She was always young at heart and showed no restraint. She was intense, very generous, and hated the avarice and backbiting in the film industry,” he says.
He recalls an incident which gives a glimpse of her playful nature. She refused to wear glasses at an event hosted by journalists and ended up calling the organiser by the wrong name. Her reasoning: “The girl who sang Dum Maro Dum cannot be seen wearing glasses”!
A diehard romantic, she always dreamt of a perfect marriage and a loving husband, which she never had, says Mishra. But luckily Asha Tai was not the kind to brood for long about her turbulent past or waste time with regrets.