जबीं सजदा करते ही करते गई….

In the hours since the passing away of Bharat Ratna Lata Mangeshkar, dozens of heartfelt tributes appeared to testify to her enduring impact on the hearts and minds of her admirers. I have nothing new to add, no hitherto unrevealed stories to relate of her career, no new eulogies to offer on the perfect combination of Sur, Laya, Taal and Bhaav that was Lata’s art. This is no more than an outpouring of the feelings that Lata’s presence in my life engenders, and it is also my way of acknowledging the debt I owe to her. In a way, rather than an expression of grief, it is a celebration of the wonder that we know as Lata.

My earliest memories of music centre around the voices of two Bharat Ratna awardees: Pandit Bhimsen Joshi and Lata Mangeshkar. In my ignorance, I remember sometimes being annoyed by the renditions of Raaga Lalat Bhatiyaar and others that my Dad would insist on playing repeatedly (completely unfettered by any reference to the time of day or night). What never annoyed me, however, was the other music he played: a 90-minute cassette of Lata’s songs from the 1950s and 1960s. As we were in Dubai (in the 1970s), Dad’s stock of music could only be enriched on our annual trips to Bombay. Lata’s songs were, therefore, replayed just as often as the classical music. By the time I was 7 or 8, I knew many of them by heart.

Even at that age I was charmed by her voice. To my mind, hers was the only ideal female singing voice. How could a woman sound different from her and still hope to excite interest and admiration in her listeners? When an on-screen heroine sounded different from Lata (because someone else had provided the playback) I remember asking my father in all innocence and much irritation, “Why does she sound like that?” A different voice was an aberration in my scheme of things, and therefore not at all something to be desired or encouraged.

Over the years my opinion has not altered. I did learn to tolerate a few different voices, but Lata has never been supplanted. Her voice was first thought to be too thin and reedy by a film producer who rejected her on that basis very early in her career. I doubt anyone ever expressed such an asinine opinion again. Lata became the standard: as the composer Sajjad famously said, “सिर्फ लता गाती है, बाकी सब रोती हैं”.

Hindi film music before the advent of Lata had to struggle with the unpromising playback singers available. It was, therefore, repetitive and to a mind like mine, not worth bothering with. I do not wish to insult the fans of this pre-Lata music — but as this is my blog I may express my opinion without reference to the feelings of others. Lata’s advent provided composers with a medium through which to realise their wildest dreams of music. Nothing was impossible to her talent; she could sing anything they envisaged, roam at will through any of the Saptaks, and even improvise to produce a magic that was uniquely her own. As far as the composers of this period were concerned, they had discovered the Holy Grail. There was no turning back: the Golden Era of Hindi Film Music had commenced.

From what I have read about her, and from the numerous anecdotes my 'Bitter Half' has recounted from his more substantial reading, Lata was a miracle of rare intellect. A person of many interests, she had the capacity to gain excellence in nearly all of them: she was a fantastic music composer, an expert photographer, artist, cook, and mimic, to name just a few. Her ability to mimic testifies to her acting skills, which one can sense through the voice modulations in her singing.

Much has been written about her musical expertise and I neither wish to repeat it, nor do I possess the knowledge to add anything new. One thing that I would like to say is that my half-baked knowledge of Hindustani classical music and my 'Bitter Half’s' more in-depth one were both devoted to the same pursuit: learning to appreciate the art of Lata even more than we already did. Our love for Lata became tempered with respect bordering on devotion when we began to see how she could effortlessly render a whole Raaga in the space of three minutes without compromising on the emotions. My ability to recognise and appreciate Raagas is nothing more than to try and match them with Lata’s songs. Her mediation makes the music more accessible to me and to millions of laypersons like me. And when I read that my ardent admiration for her art was just a faint echo of the more forceful compliment paid by Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan in his exclamation “कम्बख़्त कभी बेसुरी नहीं होती!” my heart just swells with joy thinking that although I may know very little about music, what I do know counts.

Lata changed the parameters of Hindi film playback singing for ever. For ardent admirers like my 'Bitter Half' and me she is the standard against which all female singers are always compared (of course, unfavourably). And while we do large-heartedly concede that such a comparison is unfair because Lata is truly incomparable, we still proceed to do it again and again.

My theory is that the musical ‘imagination’ and expertise that Lata possessed is indeed so rare that I have as yet not heard it replicated: Lata could sing anything. IMHO, no other singer possesses the imagination to envisage how a song can be enriched by adding little touches at just the right moment and in just the right amount. To cite just two of the innumerable such examples: the final ‘अरे, अरे, अरे, अरे’ in ‘दो घूंट मुझे भी पिला दे शराबी’ (from 'झील के उस पार') and the ‘हाय, हाय’ in ‘कारी बदरिया, मारे लहरिया’ (from 'आदमी') as Lata returns to the Mukhda after the final Antaraa. The listener is simply surprised by joy at the sudden break from the repetitive rhythm and is left marvelling yet again at Lata’s art.

I feel very strongly that were it not for her songs, life would certainly have existed but it would have been poorer: ‘तेरे बिना ज़िंदगी से कोई शिकवा नहीं, तेरे बिना ज़िंदगी भी लेकिन ज़िंदगी तो नहीं’. There would have been no balm for a stressed and depressed mind, or a pained heart. My 'Bitter Half' and I would never have met and bonded over a shared love of her music; we would never have listened to the same songs repeatedly like addicts returning to the same dealer looking for a quick fix for our cravings. Having spent years teaching my students about the validity of individual subjective responses to art, I am sometimes surprised to discover in myself an intolerant fanatic unable to put up with any Yahoos who disagree with my assessment of her greatness. I may even go so far as to say that Lata is my religion, and any contrary opinions about her art seem no less than blasphemy to me.

Her passing has left a void in me. My mind tells me there’s no need to feel that because her music remains to console us; my heart tells me that the ones we truly love never really leave us. And yet, why does this feeling of pain remain? Perhaps it is the awareness that every time we pass Prabhu Kunj the obligatory glance at the first floor is now no longer necessary; or that there is no longer any hope that Lata may still regale us with some tales of a bygone era, or that she will still be awarded with some new honour. Children born after today will have to only content themselves with listening to her music and looking at her pictures. We were the fortunate ones to have lived while she was alive.

Her passing has made us aware of our own small lives. While she lived, we were in touch with greatness; we were allowed a glimpse of the divine. She’s gone — all that’s now left to us is to bemoan the littleness of the life that now remains to us. Is this too much of sentimentalism? Perhaps. But it’s also a genuine regret at the passing of the only link that kept us in touch with our past, with a glorious period of history. Like the death of a mother puts children in mind of their own mortality, the passing of Lata has made us aware of our own lost childhoods and approaching end. Not only is the pain of her passing genuine, but so is the fear of the end that seems now so close to ourselves. Her notes continue to delight, but they seem somehow to have less power to keep that fear away. Her passing is, therefore, a personal loss for those who loved her music. Sometimes I almost envy those who were never so affected by Lata’s art. Never having been enriched by her pure notes, they never need mourn the feeling of impoverishment brought by their cessation.

And yet, I also feel sure that her music will continue console me for my loss, and alleviate some of the troubles that flesh is heir to. In all these years never have I once tired of listening to her. Shakespeare might just as well have said this of Lata: “Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale/ Her infinite variety….” Lata will continue to rule my heart.... हक़-ए-बंदगी हम अदा कर चले....