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Asha Bhosle
Asha Bhosle, pushing 70, still exudes sweetness and sensuality.
By
Kavita Chhibber
The lights dimmed
and the voice, that has for over six decades, enthralled, mesmerized
and enchanted generations of music lovers and still retains its
sultry sensuality, it freshness, its melodious perfection and pitch,
soared from the interiors of the back stage, and strains of the
sizzling number �Kambaqht Ishq� from the film Pyar Tune Kya Kiya
were welcomed by a roar from the audience.
Resplendent in a
gorgeous white ensemble, slim and sexy, oozing a sweetness and
sensuality that makes her appear far younger than her soon to be 70
years, Asha Bhosle strode on stage at a sold out concert in Atlanta.
Asha has said that she has worked for years to create a voice and a
style that was different from her legendary sister Lata Mangeshkar,
so that she could carve her own niche and not be banished to live
her shadow and went on to show just how well she has succeeded in
her efforts, as she enthralled the audience with numbers that showed
the ageless quality of her voice.
Even those who
love the Mangeshkar sisters, don�t know the long and arduous road
they walked to reach the heights that they have, but had life not
thrown so many curveballs their way, perhaps they would be content
middle class grandmothers in a suburb of Mumbai, humming melodies
for a lark to their grandchildren, instead of wowing their fans
worldwide.
Anand Bhosle is the
youngest of Asha�s three children, and while older sister Varsha is
a hard hitting political columnist for The Times of India and older
brother Hemant dabbled in music direction and then quit to fulfill
his dream of being a pilot, Anand studied business in college and
film direction, before mom decided he was to help her manage her
career. His creativity came in handy as he directed her in the super
successful television show Yeh Hai Asha. In an exclusive interview
with Little India, both mother and son shared memories and special
moments of the musical and personal journey, the grit and the grind
that has made Asha the legend and the woman that she is today.
You came from a
musical family but the goal was not to become a singing star.
Asha: My father was a very gifted man and he left home at a very
tender age to learn singing. He formed his own drama company and had
almost 200 people working for him before he forayed into films.
Music was an intrinsic part of our life, and we all learnt music but
the goal was the usual � to marry and have a home and family. It was
the death of my father at a very early age that pushed Lata didi who
was not yet 14 to go out and sing to make ends meet and I sang my
first song at the age of 10. I did get married at a very young age
to a man who was 20 years older than I was. It was a love marriage
and Lata didi did not speak to me for a long time. She disapproved
of the alliance. The family was very conservative and they could not
handle a singing star for a daughter in law. There was abuse and ill
treatment and I finally was asked to leave when I was expecting my
youngest son Anand, and I did go back to my mother, sisters, and
brother. I do not blame anyone and have no ill will. I feel if I had
not met Mr. Bhosle, I would not have had these three amazing
children and life turned out okay.
Anand: My memories of
growing up were happy memories. We lived in a joint family with my
grandmother, aunts and my uncle and cousins, and I was the baby of
the family and my grandmother�s favorite child. As kids, we had no
clue that my aunt and mom were these famous singers. It was only
when I went to school that people around me told me about it. Even
then, I did not believe them. I had never seen them sing at home,
only my uncle, and said to them, oh, no you are mistaken, it is my
uncle who is a singer. We have this small room, which substitutes
for a music room, and uncle would practice there. I think the hours
mom and aunt put in at the recording studios, singing so many songs
and rehearsing for them, gave them their practice. In fact, to this
day we stay away from the glitz. Most celebrities have not been to
our house and occasionally when one of them does show up, it is like
a pilgrimage!
While it is
expected that the children of celebrities will follow the same path,
you kept the children deliberately away from the industry.
Asha: It is a very tough line. My daughter Varsha is a very
talented singer, but realized very early on that she would have to
live her life being constantly compared to her aunt and her mother
and she was not willing to put up with that kind of nonsense. She
was always politically conscious and wanted to study law, but
eventually ended up being a journalist.
Hemant is very musical, and gave music in films, but saw how
frustrating and tough things were and finally decided to become a
pilot. In fact, there was a time when R.D. Burman would play a
wonderful tune and the producers would yawn, and then he would play
another tune and pretend it was by his father and people would say
�wah wah� and he would just look at me in disgust. That is how
ignorant and fickle the industry is, and I steered Anand towards
business and am very happy with that decision as well.
Anand: I think
because the singing career was thrust upon them, and not something
they really strived for, there was no focus on their kids carrying
on the family name. Hemant who did venture into giving music in
films and did some quality work discovered the fact that a lot of
producers and directors are tone deaf and would disregard a lot of
the wonderful tunes he came up with, sometimes settling on mediocre
stuff because they did not understand music and rather than
compromise on his creativity and what he had to offer he quit the
scene, and went on to become a pilot. His older son Chaitanya is
part of a very successful boy band, his daughter who is a teenager,
has no clue about Hindi music. My uncle�s daughter is in her early
20s and was very good, but she too has no intentions of pursuing
this as a career. I had to come into this business in the early
1980s when concert tours were beginning to gain popularity and mom
needed someone to handle the business and management end of things
for her, otherwise I too would not be around.
How hard was it to
carve a niche for yourself and not languish in the shadows of your
famous older sister?
Asha: Very hard and not just her, there were already some very
established stars like Noorjehan, Shamshad Begum, Geeta Dutt and
others who were leading the way. Therefore, in the beginning, didi
and they would get the cream of the songs and I would get the songs
filmed for B and C grade films. I studied many different styles so
that I could create a style that was different from didi�s. You can
see that if you clone yourself on a star that is alive, you will get
nowhere. As long as Kishore Kumar was alive, no one who even
remotely sounded like him was anywhere in the running. It was only
after he died the clones thrived. I don�t give up easily though. The
one gift that my mother gave me was the gift of self-confidence. She
always told us we to forget about household chores and just focus on
music. She also told me that there was no one more beautiful, or
more talented and that we should be so proud of who we were. That
self-confidence and a very strong will power have stood me in good
stead.
Anand: That is true.
Mom has an amazing will power. The more you tell her it cannot be
done, the more she will go out and prove that it can. Some time
back, she was on this tour, sick, her voice in a mess, she could
barely croak and we were in two minds whether to cancel the show or
just let Varsha go and fill in for her and let the other singers
also sing. When mom was told, she would not hear of such a thing.
She went and started singing and unlike other singers, her voice
keeps on getting better as time passes. Suddenly in the middle of
the show, her voice that had been tired and weak, suddenly soared
and then there was no looking back. She brought the house down. At
another time, she broke a finger in her foot and went about
business. By the time, she saw the physician the fractured had
healed by itself, and the physician was shaking his head wondering
how she had managed to even walk, in that kind of excruciating pain
for so long.
The stories about
the rivalry between Lataji and you, and how she tried to be one up
on you have done the rounds of gossip mills. The movie �Saaz�, was
supposedly based on your life story. How true is the gossip?
Asha: Its not true at all. To have two women in long plaits,
take a couple of incidents and exaggerate them into a 3-hour film is
such a waste of time. We are indeed different people. She thinks
with her head and is very image conscious, and even when hurt feels
she needs to uphold that image of being reserved and gracious, while
I think with my heart, am blunt and say it like it is. In fact, once
we were having dinner and someone said something that I could not
take, but because Lata didi was on the table, I was biting my
tongue. Finally she said, �Asha go ahead, blurt it out, otherwise
you won�t be able to digest your food!� Well I did and what a relief
it was. I think the reason why I live my life honestly is because
truth has a way of coming out and in the end the only person you are
trying to fool is yourself. Lata didi is a different person at home.
Many people do not know this, but she can be fun and she is a very
good dancer, but you will never catch her dancing on stage. While I
just go out and have fun, because I think it is necessary to change
with the times, to go with the flow and not take life your yourself
too seriously.
Anand: Mom and aunt
are really like North Pole and South Pole and if you see them on
stage together, you will know what I mean. Even as singers, their
styles are so different. Mom has to be very careful with her throat,
while Lataji can eat anything. Lataji has been quite frail from the
time she was a child and is always falling sick. She has had stomach
problems, but as a child, she took some homeopathic medicine for
diphtheria and for some reason it cured her of any throat problems
for life. Mom on the other hand will deprive herself of ice cream
that she loves and will have one cone of softie after a tour ends,
but she is so strong willed that even if she is sick she won�t
bother and it will be business as usual. As sisters, they were the
closest. Mom is four years younger than Lataji and was this cute
chubby child and Lata ji used to treat her like a doll and carry her
all the time, in fact one time she fell down the stairs carrying mom
and there is a scar on her forehead that is very visible in
pictures. Also they were so inseparable that when Lataji went to
school she would take mom with her, but one day the teacher
protested and said we can�t have two students on one fee, and Lataji
refused to return to school without her and quit her studies. To
this day, she teases mom that she is uneducated because of her. Mom
is very protective about Lataji. Once a music director was talking
about a singer, who had a bachelor�s degree, a real big deal in
those days and made a snide comment about how well educated the
singer was. Mom just bluntly told him, he may be educated, but he
still cannot be Lata Mangeshkar.
So how true are
the stories that the Mangeshkar sisters monopolized the music
industry and would not let anyone else in?
Asha: It�s like the saying �Nach na Jane angan teda� (the dance
floor is warped, so I can�t dance well). Okay so we monopolized the
industry, but tell me has there been anyone who is as good as the
Mangeshkars? The fact is we had no godfather to display our talents
and we worked long and hard to be where we are today. There were
other singers who were established before us and still we managed to
carve a niche for ourselves. In fact, once, for a movie, all the
songs had been sung by Sudha Malhotra, but the producer on hearing
them had them scrapped and got them re-recorded in Lata didi�s
voice. He said only she could do justice to those songs. In the
industry, no one will give you a plug even if you are related to
them if you don�t have what it takes and people who talk about
politics are the ones who either don�t have the talent or are not
willing to work hard. The fact is if you have the talent no one can
keep you down, but today most people think they can become famous
and great artists just by cutting an album. Let me also tell you
that there are some wonderful albums that I have sung on, but they
have not seen the light of day because of rivalries between the
music houses and some other petty politics. Therefore, the
Mangeshkar sisters are not that influential.
Anand: It is an
unfortunate part of showbiz, and it is true that some wonderful
albums that mom has done, one with Hariharan for example, and many
others were not even marketed well. I agree with mom that today most
people who have never seen wealth or fame can get dizzy, when it is
showered on them. Fortunately, it is a temporary phase, because
these types usually lose the fame pretty soon and get back to square
one. As my Mom very well puts it, �Every artist, when he walks out
on stage, must be prepared right in the beginning that the curtain
has to come down at the end of the show� I guess the sisters think
like this because their father was a huge celebrity in his time and
they have seen the difficulties of life. They try to preach their
philosophy to new entrants in the music world, but I guess one does
not hear much through the din of the audiences� applause. My mom and
aunt had sung for over three decades in films before they ventured
out for a concert tour. That is why wherever they perform the show
is sold out. Mom tells a lot of these newcomers to slow down and
work hard and go on tours after a few years, but today the newcomers
have a CD in one hand an a plane ticket in the other. In addition,
most people do not realize that mom and aunt stayed at the top
because of their dedication and discipline. Look at their career
span. There is no substitute for hard work.
Your career has
been divided into two main halves: the O.P. Nayyar days, when you
came into your own, and the R.D. Burman days when you reached
dizzying heights of success.. What has been the contribution of each
music director?
Asha: O.P. Nayyar felt that my voice sounded better when I sang
at a lower pitch and created songs accordingly, but there was no
challenge for me, those songs were easy to sing. However, the person
who I credit with really having the courage to give me my first big
break was B.R.Chopra. He by passed all established singers and gave
me, a newcomer who till then had been relegated to B movies the
opportunity to sing all the songs in the Dilip Kumar-Vyjanthi Mala
starrer Naya Daur, and later songs for Dhool Ka Phool and Waqt. Of
course, I did sing for other music directors and they all had their
good points. Madan Mohan was a wonderful singer too, but did not
like it if you sang the song differently from the way he sang it,
but my personal favorite was Salil Chaudhry. His music had the
complexities and challenges that makes it exciting for a singer to
sing, and I found very few people who could do that for me. My
regret is that I did not get to sing that many songs for him, but my
all-time favorite of course is S.D. Burman, and of course, it was
Pancham (R.D.Burman) who really exploited the full potential of my
voice and challenged me to greater heights. I first met him when I
was a mother of two and he was in 10th grade having dropped out to
pursue music and I scolded him and asked him to not give up on
studies. He told me later he was a bit irritated with me because he
felt he would be wasting his time in school when music was his
passion.
When he offered me Aaja Aaja from Teesri Manzil, I was petrified. I
had never sung a song with such heavy western influence, but didi
said you are a Mangeshkar you can do it. Shammi Kapoor thought I
would do an excellent job and kept teasing me do not sing it better
than Rafi, I don�t want Asha Parekh to sound better than me! After
rehearsing and quaking at the knees for 10 days when I finally sang
the song, R.D. was so impressed he handed me a 100-rupee note!
Between Lata didi, Kishore Kumar and I, we sang all of Pancham�s
songs and Kishore always improvised on the spot, and I think he knew
that I was the only one who could keep up with him. A lot of time,
we would finalize things and then when we went in front of the mike
he would sing something very different, and I would match him with
improvisation of my own! Pancham was a genius, and the first
musician to blend east and west so beautifully. Today all the
musicians do is plagiarize from others and pass it as their own.
Anand: I think the
reason why the Burman-Mangeshkar-Kishore partnership worked was
because Pancham gave them a free hand to improvise. Often the tune
would start as an ordinary one and then these people would start
experimenting and improvising and before you knew it, the song would
turn into a b blockbuster. There were times that Pancham felt that
his talent as a music director and arranger did not get the
recognition it deserved and that the singers were the ones who
hogged the limelight. Mom said to him that may be true, but try and
get someone else to sing your tunes and then see the difference and
he agreed that the magic was created because of what these three
contributed to his tunes. In fact, mom has made every song come
alive. She gave an example in a show recently, when she took the
song �Chura liya hai tumne jo dil ko� and showed the audience how
she sang it in that very sultry way to make match Zeenat Aman�s
personality and make her look like an excellent actress. Had she
sung it in a flat voice, all of Zeenat�s oomph could not have
redeemed the song. Perhaps it is this allure and ability to
incorporate so many different nuances and emotions that has made her
cross all barriers of time and language and age.
You must enjoy
singing with A.R. Rahman. He is the closest anyone has come to
R.D.Burman�s talent and style of mixing east and west?
Asha: Yes and he is very talented, but I think Pancham was still
in a different league. I think Rahman, is very open-minded and lets
me improvise.
Anand: If you check
out Rahman�s top 10 hits you will notice that 7 out of 10 songs are
sung by mom, and the reason that is so is because he lets her sing
and improvise. Mom can sing the same line in 20 different ways. His
genius lies in the fact that he can pick the best of each line and
put it together. There are several other music directors who will
not budge and ask mom to sing a song as they want without her own
contribution and both my aunt and mom in spite of being a treasure
houses of musical knowledge will graciously do as they are told.
Pancham was indeed leagues ahead of anyone. While Rahman is an
excellent music arranger, Pancham was both an amazing musician and
an arranger, and Rahman has told mom that there is nothing left for
him to innovate because Pancham had pretty much done it all in spite
of the limited technology at his disposal in those days.
You have
experimented with remixes, sung with Boy George, and many other boy
bands, and also in English, Russian and Malaysian. I heard you just
picked up some English cassettes went for a walk and returned to
give a flawless rendition of your hit Ave Maria. How has the entire
experience been?
Asha: Well after you have sung in Tamil, English, Russian and
Malaysian are a cakewalk! When I met some of these very successful
artists wearing rags, I thought they were very poor and needed
financial help! It was when Anand told me they are rich as anything
and this is just the way they dress that enlightenment dawned! It
was fun and very easy. I believe in moving with the times and
enjoying myself. I think I decided to get into the remix scene
because as Lata did said every body is botching things up, at least
you will make less of a mess of it. Luckily, Rahul and I was greatly
appreciated.
Anand: Mom has a very
finely tuned ear for music and languages. She has such a wide range
that once when she was being nominated for the Grammies someone
asked which category does she qualify for and I said she can sing
anything from Pavarotti, all that is in between, to Michael Jackson.
She has covered every aspect of music so it is not possible to slot
her. In fact, in the song �O meri Jaan maine kaha� she has hit a
note that is out side the keyboard!
What do you think
of today�s music and singers?
Asha: Not much really. In those days apart from having great
musicians we had amazing songwriters, that is why those melodies are
evergreen. Today for how long are you going to listen to songs like
�Kambaqht Ishq� and �Ishq Kamina.� In addition, television has given
mediocre music an extended lease on life. A song is aired. you can
see it is average, but when it is aired repeatedly, you start
accepting it, but it never ceases to amaze me how people with such
limited knowledge of music or little talent can go and release
albums at the drop of the hat!
What are the
things that make Asha Bhosle the person and the singer that she is?
Anand: As a singer, I guess no one can touch her in terms of
talent and versatility. However, as a person she is a wonderful
mother, grandmother and mother-in-law, and very popular with her
grandkids, kids and daughters and son-in-law. She has a child-like
curiosity about everything and a great ability to pick on things.
The other day I was discussing NRI investment and she immediately
picked up on the fact that NRIs have contributed very significantly
to India�s economy and wanted to incorporate that observation in her
show. Then of course, she has had to make a lot of sacrifices and
her determination is amazing�. In addition, she is such a little
girl at heart. We were on tour and reached Los Angeles and she
wanted to stay one more day, why, because she wanted to go to
Disneyland! In addition, I still remember this incident where we
were taking a tour of Versailles and there was this very impressive
and tour and a tourist guide waxing eloquent about the palace, the
history and what was mom doing? She was totally oblivious to
everything but the softie she had finally earned, after the concert
tour and was licking it from top to bottom, not letting even a drop
fall. My sister and I thought it was really funny and started
giggling. Then an American man looked at her and he started
chuckling. She looked up when she heard the laughter and asked,
�What�s so funny?� She is very honest and thinks with her heart and
maybe that is why she has not received her due from so many people.
Asha: I do believe in
living life with honesty, and I have taught my children the same
thing. The difference is they are more diplomatic, but I just take
the liberty to say it as it is. Well it has been a great journey and
yes, I think with my heart and won�t change that. I am glad I have
the ability to never give up, and to change with the times, to see
the positive in the negative. I am looking for new challenges, to
build a legacy. I really enjoyed doing the Legacy album with Ustad
Ali Akbar Khan, and I am planning a couple of exciting new albums,
and working on my autobiography.
All
Material � Copyright Kavita Chhibber
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