”I was watching her offer ‘namaz’ and tears streamed down her cheeks. When she was done praying, I asked her, why was she crying, to which she (Jehan) replied that she supplicated to the Almighty to forgive any ‘gustakhi’ (violation),” Mangeshkar said.
Melody queens Lata Mangeshkar and Noor Jehan are globally renowned personalities, and the two legendary singers had first met at a film set in Kolhapur in 1944 when India’s nightingale had sung some classical songs in front of Mallika-e-Tarannum.
Mangeshkar, one of the biggest music icons of the country, died Sunday due to multiple organ failure. She was 92. The Indian singer was a big admirer of Noor Jehan, who chose to be in the newly-created Pakistan after the 1947 Partition.
Her death has brought back her matchless legacy once again in focus. And, while many find it hard to believe, Mangeshkar was one of the main playback singers in first-ever Bhojpuri film ‘Hey Ganga Maiyya Tohe Piyari Chadhaibo’ (1963), a path-breaking cinema that also featured voice of another legend, Muhammad Rafi.
She also lent her silver voice in many other Bhojpuri films, including, ‘Lagi Nahi Chhute Ram’.
The death of the 95-year-old singer has plunged the nation into grief and her demise is also being mourned in Pakistan, proving how the power of music and shared heritage transcends borders.
In a video interview, published a month ago on UCTV Blackburn’s YouTube page, Mangeshkar had recalled how she had first met Jehan on the sets of the film ‘Badi Maa’ in Kolhapur, Maharashtra, a few years before the Independence. Mangeshkar also played a small role in the film.
”I was working with Praful Pictures as an actor. Noor Jehan was a leading actor in the film, and had come to Kolhapur for shooting. I was called by the producer to meet Noor Jehan, and she asked me to sing some classical songs and then also film songs,” she recalled in the undated interview.
Mangeshkar, who died in a Mumbai hospital, was born in Indore on September 28, 1929.
In the video interview, she also reminisced how Jehan asked her to practice classical songs, and the two singers would later meet in Bombay (now Mumbai) too.
”I was watching her offer ‘namaz’ and tears streamed down her cheeks. When she was done praying, I asked her, why was she crying, to which she (Jehan) replied that she supplicated to the Almighty to forgive any ‘gustakhi’ (violation),” Mangeshkar said.
Another anecdote, reported by multiple media outlets, is that noted filmmaker Mehboob Khan was had once gone to America for treatment as he was ill.
Khan was in Los Angeles and had a desire to listen to the song ‘rasik balma dil kyun laga tose’ from Raj Kapoor’s film Chori Chori of 1950s.
The story goes that attempts were made to find a record of this song in the US but in vain. So, the ‘Mother India’-fame filmmaker rang up Mangeshkar from America and requested her to sing the song to him on the phone.
The singer obliged and also acceded to Khan’s request that she would sing it for him on phone whenever he would like to, as per published reports and accounts.
On Sunday, her death was being condoled by people in both India and Pakistan. An old, undated photograph showing Jehan, affectionately called Madam Noor Jehan, flanked by Mangeshkar and her younger sister Asha Bhonsle was being widely shared on social media.
Before she ruled the Indian music circuit, Mangeshkar started her career in the film industry as an actor playing smaller parts to support her family after her father’s death.
She got the opportunity to play a minor role along with Bhosle in Master Vinayak’s first Hindi-language movie, ‘Badi Maa’, released in 1945. In the film, she also sang a bhajan, ‘Maata Tere Charnon Mein’.
