Mangeshkar was well-known around the world as a singer whose work was included in Bollywood films.
Lata Mangeshkar, a great Indian singer with a prolific, revolutionary record and a voice recognised by over a billion South Asians, has died. She was 92 years old.
According to her physician, Dr. Pratit Samdani, the legendary singer died Sunday morning of multiple organ failure at Mumbai’s Breach Candy hospital. She was admitted to the hospital on January 11 after developing COVID-19. She was removed off the ventilator when her health improved in late January, but her condition deteriorated on Saturday and she was placed back on life support.
Mangeshkar was given a state funeral, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi flying in from New Delhi to pay his respects.
Modi established a Thousands of people, including Bollywood stars and politicians, flocked to Mumbai’s landmark Shivaji Park to pay their respects to Mangeshkar, who was cremated amid chanting of vedic hymns and a special gun salute.
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Doordarshan, India’s public broadcaster, presented live footage of the cremation to a country in mourning, with Mangeshkar’s songs playing in the background.
India has proclaimed two days of national mourning and has lowered the national flag until Monday.
Lata Mangeshkar’s remains is carried in a funeral procession outside her home in Mumbai, India, on Sunday, February 6, 2022. The great Indian singer, whose discography was vast and pioneering, and whose voice was recognised by a billion people in South Asia, died on Sunday morning. owing to multiple organ failure She was 92 years old. Rafiq Maqbool/AP Photo
Messages of condolence flooded in shortly after Mangeshkar’s death was reported.
“I am heartbroken beyond words,” Modi tweeted. “She has left a vacuum in our country that cannot be filled. Her melodic voice had an unrivalled power to captivate listeners, and future generations will remember her as a bastion of Indian culture.”
Mangeshkar had a huge presence as a playback singer for nearly eight decades, performing songs that were eventually lip-synced by actors in India’s opulent Bollywood musicals. She was also known as the “Melody Queen” and the “Nightingale of India.”
Mangeshkar’s songs, which were always full of emotion, were frequently melancholy and mostly dealt with unrequited love, but others dealt with national pride. During battles with neighbouring Pakistan and China, they were used to excite Indians and the country’s defence forces.
Mangeshkar, who was born on September 28, 1929 in Maharashtra, began singing at religious gatherings alongside her father, who was also a talented singer. She became a star with enormous popular appeal after moving to Mumbai, India’s film industry centre, charming audiences with her silky but incisive voice and immortalising Hindi music for decades to come.
Few musicians exemplified flexibility like Mangeshkar, who released her first song in 1942 for a Bollywood film when she was only 13 years old. Soon after, she established herself as a Hindi singing icon, having lent her voice to over 5,000 songs in over a thousand Bollywood and regional language films. She performed for Madhubala and Meena Kumari were among the first female celebrities in Bollywood, and they eventually gave voice to modern divas such as Priyanka Chopra.
Mangeshkar was only in her twenties when she established herself as one of India’s top playback singers. Her career-defining moment, however, came in the epic historical drama “Mughal-e-Azam,” a love tragedy produced in 1960. Its music, “Pyar Kiya To Darna Kya?” (Why fear if you are in love?) is regarded as one of the most unforgettable in Bollywood cinema, and has become an unquestionable essence of love’s often rebellious character over the years.
Mangeshkar collaborated with practically all great Indian music directors during her career, including Madan Mohan, Naushad, S.D. Burman, R.D. Burman, the combo Laxmikant-Pyarelal, and A.R. Rahman. , with tens of millions of recordings sold. She also won a slew of singing honours, elevating her to near-holy status in the Bollywood music industry.
“I can’t believe I’ve been tolerated by music fans for 75 years!” she said in a Rediff.com interview last year.
Mangeshkar’s fame expanded well beyond the borders of India. She was feted not only in Pakistan and Bangladesh, but also in certain Western countries.
She was awarded the “Bharat Ratna,” India’s highest civilian accolade, in 2001. In 2007, the French government bestowed the highest civilian honour on her, “Officier de la Legion d’Honneur.”
