If … Madan Mohan was strong-willed, so is Lata Mangeshkar mentally tough, very tough. To quote Rajsinh Dungarpur: ‘I think she has a split personality. Rub her the wrong way and she just won’t take it – she’s like a tigress.’ Rafi certainly got on Lata’s wrong side with what he said when it came to the royalty issue … dueting together. They did patch up after close to three years … but the matter was not settled in the Naushadian Andaz of Yoon toh aapas mein bigadte hain khafa hotey hain. The tuning between Lata and Rafi was never quite the same again.
Around 1961–62, when Lata Mangeshkar and Mohammed Rafi were ranking level, Rafi, in convivial company, habitually referred to Lata as ‘Maharani’! It was a form of address that Rafi ventured to use to Lata’s face, for the first time, when there was that straight confrontation between the two on the issue of royalties from music. What Rafi, eminently sardonically, went on to state was: ‘Our Maharani, I suppose, would have the final say!’ Maybe the tone in which Rafi said it offended Lata, maybe she felt he was so accenting it because – no matter how she projected the royalty issue – his stand was pre-arranged to be exactly the opposite. Either way, Rafi’s sarcastic undertone had Lata taking umbrage. The matter could still have been sorted out, amicably, inside the Playback Singers Association itself – especially with a born Mathur-mediator, in Mukesh Chand, around. But Rafi’s addressing her, in a sidelong glance, as ‘Maharani’– even while still looking to be totally unperturbed by it all – got to Lata. So much so that Lata threatened not to perform, any more, with our No. 1 male singer. Upon Rafi’s uncaringly retorting that the feeling was mutual, Lata lost her cool. She individually rang each music director of note – not least Naushad – to let it be known, emphatically, that she was no longer prepared to sing with Rafi. It put the lid on the playback pot already boiling over. Beginning end-1962, Lata and Rafi stopped dueting together – for nearly three years.
Actually, ‘Maharani’ was not the only label by which Lata was privately known in the industry. She, like Indira Gandhi, was habitually the ‘High Command’ in the eyes of film makers. ‘It’s the High Command’s order!’ was the standard catchphrase to be heard upon a customary last-minute cancellation of a recording by Lata. In a like context, a couple of years after the two patched up, I recall running into that still-frustrated lover, C. Ramchandra, at a time when I was in regular touch with Lata. ‘Kyun bhai Raju, Peddar Road kyaa kehtaa hai?’ (Raju, what does Peddar Road [where Lata stayed] have to say?) is how C. Ramchandra semi-cuttingly hailed me at the time. By early 1963, the C. Ramchandra–Lata relationship had cooled off, leaving her bitter. Lata felt further hurt, as she had solid reason to believe that C. Ramchandra, in a meddlesome move, had come in the way of her wedding glamboy Jaikishan, single and eligible, in mid-1963. In Lata’s life and types, before C. Ramchandra, there had been Pt. Husnlal (of the Husnlal–Bhagatram team). Side by side, Sardul Kwatra, the tall and well-built Sardarji whose Sardarni wife had gone wailing to Lata-rival Shamshad Begum about her composer-husband’s being spirited away. Indeed a 1954 Sardul Kwatra composition, Sade pind vich paake hatti, even found a significant spot on a two-part long playing disc (7T JW. 394-395) representing a 25 April 1967 ‘Recorded Tribute to Lata Mangeshkar from HMV’ to celebrate the silver jubilee of the golden voice.
It is important to underline this great trait of Lata then – a trait by which she chose not to forget her ‘loves’ in such a tribute, no matter how the involvement might have ended. Maybe it was the man so evocatively doing the commentary for this historic tribute, HMV’s Vijay Kishore Dubey, who so soundly guided Lata in such a delicate matter. At Dubey’s instance, it was thus refreshing to find, in that milestone LP, not only Sardul Kwatra’s Sade pind vich paake hatti, but also Husnlal-(Bhagatram)’s Chale jaana nahein (going on Geeta Bali in Badi Bahen, 1949); (Shanker)-Jaikishan’s Jiyaa beqaraar hai (orchestrated by the senior but actually tuned by the junior partner to go on debutante Nimmi in RK’s Barsaat, 1950); and in no way forgotten was C. Ramchandra, getting a hearing via his Anarkali masterpiece, Yeh zindagee usee kee hai, so touchingly picturized on Bina Rai. From among the lot, Jaikishan’s moving away from her, all of a sudden, had really stung Lata.
Let us look at things from Lata’s perspective – about how this diva, as a single woman throughout her 80-year life, always had the unquestioned right to her private choice; about how, no matter what be the scale of her success, Lata (as a woman) must feel the lack of a family life; about how Lata, finally, got to the point of marrying Maharaj Kumar Rajsinhji of Dungarpur – 6 years and 49 days younger to her – but how his father, the highly esteemed Maharawal Laxmansinhji, put his foot down. What could be sadder than the fact that, while being barely three miles from the Worli abode in which the cricket icon spent his last days, Lata could get to speak to him only on the phone. And that after she had taken such exemplary care of her Raj while he was in her Pune hospital. Lata, clearly sensing the changed atmosphere, kept her discreet distance, for by temperament she never was the one to intrude if she had the slightest doubt that her presence might or might not be entirely welcome.
Rajsinh Dungarpur had been an abiding Lata connection that had begun, as I cricket-viewed it, some time in 1968 and endured despite every attempt by mischievous rivals to throw a spanner in the works. We on the cricket beat knew all about how much each cared for the other. One also got a genuine insight into their warm relationship, through an interview that Rajsinh Dungarpur gave to Shradha Sukumaran of SUNDAY MID DAY (in the issue of 3 October 2004). Each Raj bonding: 3 October 2004). Each quote, below, brings out the couple’s true bonding:
Aayegaa aayegaa aayegaa:
Rajsinh Dungarpur
Lata Mangeshkar can be childlike. When she got the Bharat Ratna, we were in London. She opened the flat and it was 11:30 at night. The phone was ringing. She picked it up and said, “Wow!” I said, “Hell! What is wow left for Lata Mangeshkar?” She said, “Rachna is telling me that I’ve got the Bharat Ratna.” [Rachna, her favourite niece] The phones never stopped till late in the night. The next morning – in London, you have to make a cup of tea yourself – I made one for her. She had her two, three medicines and I asked her, “How does it feel to be a Bharat Ratna?”She said, “Now that you ask me… bahut achha lagta hai.” Everybody knows that I was extremely close to her – I am still close to her. I just spoke to her 15 minutes ago. This is a very personal matter. But we came from different backgrounds – 1960s was very different. Perhaps, both were very attached to their respective families. It was one of those things that just didn’t happen. But that has neither enhanced the relationship, nor has it reduced. She is the treasure house of my admiration and affection and I continue to be in touch with her.
A moving paragraph from the same SUNDAY MID DAY interview:
But when Mehboob Khan got ill, Yusufbhai (Dilip Kumar) asked her to call him. When she called him, he (Mehboob Khan) said, “Tum Dheere se aa jaa ree telephone mein suna do, aur mujhe achha lage gaa” (“You sing Dheere se aa jaa ree [1951 lullaby from Albela, penned by Rajendra Krishna and tuned by C. Ramchandra] on the telephone and I’ll feel better.”) She sang straightaway – from Peddar Road to California.
Rajsinh Dungarpur (as sketched by Shradha Sukumaran) met up with Lata as early as when she was at Nana’s Chowk in her absolute beginning days: ‘Sopan Sardesai and the Mangeshkar family lived in Nana Chowk in what would be perhaps little above a chawl. From there she [Lata] went to Walkeshwar (a two-bedroom flat behind Walkeshwar House) and then to Peddar Road … That’s how I came to know her. I went for a couple of her recordings and so on.’ Raj said he first saw Lata in 1959 as he got down to playing tennis-ball cricket with the Mangeshkar family. Lata was into cricket even before he got into the game! We have, as the Shradha cherry on the Raj icing, Dungarpur’s naming his ‘Top Seven’ Lata Mangeshkar favourites, for each decade of her life (up to 3 October 2004), as:
1) Aayegaa aayegaa aayegaa aayegaa aane waala (from Mahal)
2) Aa jaa re pardesee (from Madhumati)
3) Dheere se aa jaa ree akhiyan mein nindiya (from Albela)
4) Yeh zindagee usee kee hai (from Anarkali)
5) Chalte chalte yoon hee koee mil gayaa thhaa (from Pakeezah)
6) Aaj pheer jeene kee tamanna hai ([which is part of the song Kaaton se kheench keh yeh aanchal]from Guide)
7) Bekas pe karam keejiye Sarkar-e-Madeina (from Mughal-e-Azam)
Rajsinh is no longer in our midst, otherwise I could have asked him how come there is not a single Madan Mohan or Roshan composition in his selection of seven. But Rajsinh, unwittingly, lets us into it himself: ‘She said that Madan Mohan was the (one) music director who never attempted to replace her – all others did and came back to her.’
At last, we have a rational explanation for Lata’s suddenly switching allegiance from Roshan to Madan Mohan, after that Roshan Nite held in June 1967, when her favourite composer had got a total newcomer Hemlata to duet with Rafi on the Shanmukhananda Hall stage via Roshan’s 1963 Raag Pahadi Taj Mahal hit: Jo vaada kiyaa woh nibhaana padegaa. It was this Hemlata happening at a Roshan Nite – not exactly calculated to please Lata –that cleared the Roshan way for Madan Mohan. Yet, to Lata’s credit, Roshan features alongside Madan Mohan in her ‘silver’ HMV record. Lata’s 1958 Roshan solo from Aji Bas Shukriya, figuring here, is Saaree saaree raat teree yaad sataye (picturized on Geeta Bali); while Madan Mohan wins notice through Tu jahaan jahaan chalegaa (from Mera Saaya, 1966) filmed on Sadhana. Near inevitably, this invaluable silver record begins with Khemchand Prakash’s Aayegaa aayegaa aayegaa (as ‘voiced over’ on Madhubala in Mahal, 1949). It goes on to spotlight Naushad via Meree laadlee ree meree laadlee ree banee hai (on Nargis in Andaz, 1949); S. D. Burman via Jhan jhan jhan paayal baaje (on Nimmi in Buzdil, 1951); Hemant Kumar via Man doley meraa tan doley (on Vyjayanthimala in Nagin, 1954); Vasant Desai via Saiyyan jaao jaao (on Sandhya in Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baaje, 1955); Ravi via Laage na moraa jiyaa (on Bina Rai in Ghunghat, 1960); Kalyanji-Anandji via Ek tuu na milaa (on Mala Sinha in Himalay Ki Godmein,1965); Laxmikant-Pyarelal via Jot se jot jagaate chalo (on Master Babloo in Sant Gyaneshwar, 1964); finally, R. D. Burman via Aa jaa piyaa tohe pyaar doon (on Asha Parekh in Baharon Ke Sapne, 1967).
Rahein na rahein hum: Roshan
There are flashes, too, of Lata’s renderings from the Bhagawad Gita and there is the Meera bhajan, Mai ree mhaano sukhana ma paranya Dinanath – both composed by her phenomenally talented brother, Hridaynath Mangeshkar. The Meera bhajan neatly embodies Mai and Dinanath as the two elders heading the Mangeshkar parivaar. As I met up with Lata during the HMV Taj function for this silver record’s (non)-release, she took my breath away by quipping that it was an evening during which she was on the lookout for ‘a playback speaker’! Endearingly, she even went on to make her maiden speech in English on the occasion. I did not think it fit, in such a joyous atmosphere, to stress too much upon names like Anil Biswas, Master Ghulam Haider, Sajjad Husain, Shyam Sunder, Salil Chowdhury, Khayyam and Jaidev being noteworthy missouts in the ‘silver’ tribute. In fact, there was no way I could have pressed the matter, since Lata sweetly excused herself by saying that the selections were by HMV, not by her! The silver LP further focused upon Lata’s multilingual versatility via Vasant Prabhu’s Tujhe doley paania nee bharle (private Marathi song, 1951), Puroshottam Upadhyay’s Havey sakhee nahein boloon (private Gujarati song, 1957), Naushad’s Endankannalan from Vanaratham(Tamil parallel of Lata’s More saiyyanjee uttarenge paar ho from Uran Khatola, both released in 1955); Bhupen Hazarika’s To na kare ratti (private Assamese song, 1966); Satinath Mukerjee’s Aakash prodeep joley (private Bengali song, 1957); Chitragupta’s Bhojpuri title song, Ganga Maiya Tohe Piari Chadhaibo, from the 1962 film of that name; plus Sardul Kwatra’s Sade pind vich paake hatti (from the 1954 Punjabi film Vanjara).
Aawaaz mein auratpanaa:
Sajjad with Lata
If the Punjabi with a difference, Madan Mohan, was strong-willed, so is Lata Mangeshkar mentally tough, very tough. To quote Rajsinh Dungarpur: ‘I think she has a split personality. Rub her the wrong way and she just won’t take it – she’s like a tigress.’ Rafi certainly got on Lata’s wrong side with what he said when it came to the royalty issue. Maybe Rafi’s addressing her as ‘Maharani’ acquired overtones purely because it happened during such a momentous confrontation where Lata felt that, if the two presented a joint front on the issue, there was no way the singer’s share of two-and-a-half per cent royalty could be refused. Rafi, by contrast, argued that his financial claim on the song ended with his being paid for the rendition on the dot, after which, he said, he carried no responsibility for the recorded song’s success or failure. Therefore, submitted Rafi, there was noway he could legitimately go along with Lata in claiming any singing royalty. Rafi’s earthy line of reasoning annoyed Lata no end. The two (as already noted) ceased dueting together.
Woh jo milte thhe kabhii … Madan Mohan told the author he felt
disappointed Lata did not pick this, his 1963 Akeli Mat Jaiyo gem, in her ‘
Ten Best Ever’
They did patch up after close to three years, upon discovering Suman Kalyanpur and Mahendra Kapoor to be the joint beneficiaries of such a rift in the ‘duet’. But the matter was not settled in the Naushadian Andaz of Yoon toh aapas mein bigadte hain khafa hotey hain. The tuning between Lata and Rafi was never quite the same again. Wonder, therefore, what our diva’s feelings were as news reached Lata of a drastic development inside Naushad’s ‘Ashiana’ household, where a letter had been drafted, authorized and duly signed by Mohammed Rafi, frontally disputing Lata’s 25,000 songs’ record, as listed in the 1974 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records. Neither Rafi nor Naushad was ever really pardoned for this ‘misdemeandour’. What transpired – after the Lata–Rafi patch-up – was startling, to say the least. The mild-mannered Rafi began to get the feeling that Dilip Kumar was taking the disciplined performer’s playback presence, on him, for granted. Rafi felt further diminished as Dilip Kumar once invited only Naushad, not him, to travel, in his car, to a function where Rafi was due to perform– with Dilip Kumar set to preside. Naushad politely refused Dilip Kumar’s offer, cleverly staying back, only to behold Rafi, still looking incensed, seated inside his ‘Ashiana’ music room. Rafi clearly stressed upon the fact that never before had he felt so slighted. Hence, never again would he sing for Dilip Kumar! That is how, in Saira Banu– Dilip Kumar’s first film together, Gopi (1970), one found Mahendra Kapoor, under the music direction of Kalyanji-Anandji, taking over (Hey Ramchandra keh gaye Siya se aesaa Kalyug aayegaa; Gentleman, gentleman, gentleman; Ek padosan peechchey pad gayee), after Rafi had put over, on our thespian, just one song: Sukh ke sab saathee dukh mein na koee. Next, in the music-conscious Tapan Sinha’s Sagina (1974), it is, wonder of wonders, Kishore Kumar on Dilip Kumar all through. Lata, in the same Sagina, joins Kishore Kumar in that mind-sweeping S. D. Burman-tuned, Majrooh-written duet picturized on Saira-Dilip as: Tumhre sang toh rain bitaayee kahaan bitaaoo din. Rafi did sing for Dilip Kumar again – though after a fairly long interregnum – in Asit Sen’s Bairaag (1976), the Dilip Kumar–Saira Banu film featuring Rafi, Lata & Chorus’s Main bairaagee naachoon gaaon, alongside those two Rafi–Asha duets: Saare shehar mein aap-sa koee nahein koee nahein and Peete peete kabhii kabhii yoon jaam badal jaate hain.
Some six years before Bairaag, Kalyanji-Anandji had,Gopi-going, their own dispute with Rafi over the singer’s opting to allot more recording dates (in a month) to arch-rivals LP(Laxmikant-Pyarelal). Even LP, in the case of the long-in-completing Dastaan (released in March 1972 and teaming Dilip Kumar-Sharmila Tagore for the first time), had been impelled, after just one recording, to make do without Rafi’s voice on our iconic hero. This cameabout after LP had recorded that super Rafi solo for B. R. Chopra’s Dastaan, set to be ‘voiced over’ on Dilip Kumar as Na tuu zameen ke liye hai na aasmaan ke liye, penned by Sahir Ludhianvi. As in Gopi, from Rafi, it was Mahendra Kapoor (Maria Maria Maria… Maria, my sweetheart… ae dil deewaane gaataa jaa) taking over on Dilip Kumar in Dastaan. That Dilip Kumar and Rafi did, after such a hiatus, let bygones be bygones with Bairaag (1976) was appropriate. Yet it was Lata one had to watch after she composed her differences with Dilip Kumar.
There was not a function held at which Dilip Kumar did not hail Lata as his chhoti bahen (little sister). This despite the fact Dilip Kumar had not spoken to Lata through 12 years after he felt that our diva had studiedly outsung him! My reference is to Dilip Kumar’s asserting that, if he ever sang in films, it would have to be a duet with the one-and-only Lata. It finally happened in Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s 1957 Musafir trilogy – in the segment witnessing Dilip Kumar to be paired with Usha Kiran. Under the baton of Salil Chowdhury, Lata and Dilip Kumar recorded Laagee naahein chhoote Rama chaahe jiyaa jaaye, based upon a well-known thumri in Raag Pilu – something Dilip Kumar had been singing for years. It was a thumri that should have given the would-be singer-actor a head-start on Lata. But such was Lata’s euphony by January 1957 that Laagee naahein chhoote Rama had her outsinging Dilip Kumar, in line after line, on both sides of the N52311 record! This Dilip Kumar came to resent and the two ceased to be on speaking terms. By the time the two came to be brought together, each was an icon. Two icons are better than one! There was mutual advantage, to Lata and Dilip alike, in such a reunion. One had to see, and hear, Dilip Kumar acting the big brother in public, particularly while introducing Lata during her first overseas concert (1974) at the Royal Albert Hall in London. What an impeccable Dilip Kumar performance it was, remembered to this day by many. Even HMV had to include the starturn performance, by Dilip Kumar, in its LP disc (Lata Mangeshkar Live at Royal Albert Hall, London) – EASD 4015-16 (Stereo) (Double Album). As one watched and heard Dilip Kumar live that evening, one instinctively understood what precisely Suraiya had meant when – going by her experience opposite our thespian on the sets of K. Asif’s left-unfinished Janwar – she observed: ‘The trouble with Yusuf is that he continues to act even after the director says ‘‘Cut, cut!’’’
Maanmeraa ehsaan arre naadaan ke maine tujh se kiyaa hai pyaar
Maine tujh se kiyaa hai pyaar
Meree nazar kee dhoop na bhartee roop toh hotaa husn teraa bekaar
Maine tujh se kiyaa hai pyaar *
*As Shakeel-written and Naushad-tuned for a Mohammed Rafi going on Dilip Kumar in Mehboob’s Aan (1952).