BIRTHDAY SPECIAL: EK LATA DIDI AUR USKE LAADLE AUR PYAARE BHAI HRIDAYANATH MANGESHKAR....

Aise toh lakho karodo bhai hai bharat Ratna Lata Mangeshkar ke , lekin kuch unke bhai aise hai jo unke dil aur mann ke kareeb hai . Chalo aaj Raksha Bandhan ke avsar par unke kuch khaas bhaiyon ke baare mein baat karte hai  - Ali Peter John

Lata Mangeshkar had three other sisters, Meena , Asha and Usha , and she had only one brother , Hridaynath who was the youngest and is very close to her .

He was very young when their father Pandit Deenanath Mangeshkar died when he was only forty-two and the responsibility of taking care of the family sell on the little Lata shoulders and she fulfilled her responsibility by taking care of the family and especially her polio-stricken brother, Hridaynath.

Their bond as sister and brother grew stronger with time and still stands strong when Lata is ninety-two and Hridaynath is eighty-three.

Lata even calls him a guru when it comes to music . The other sisters of lata have gone in and out of Prabhu Kunj , but Hridaynath and his wife Bharti and their two children have always been with Lata and have celebrated all the festivals together, especially Ganesh Chaturthi and Raksha Bandhan which is a very prestigious festival for Lata because it is on this day that she spends most of her time with her brother who she calls" Bal " ( little child) . ....

As Lata kept growing more and more successful, she found other very important men who she accepted and respected as her brothers.

The first brother of Lata was Dilip Kumar who she called Dilip bhai sahab and touched his feet out of respect and he even called her" meri chhoti behen" in public and at various prestigious shows all over the world.

Lata was perhaps the last celebrity who the legendary actor recognized and she even got him to eat some sweets from her hand. That was the last meeting between the Bhai sahab and his chhoti behen...

The other well-known bhai of Lata was Dr. Sivaji Ganesan the legend of Tamil cinema who went on to be a leading politician and a leader of the Congress Party.

The actor and leader made it a point to travel to Bombay only to see his "sister" , Lata. It was because of Lata that he was very close to the Mangeshkar family.

When Lata built her hospital in Pune , the Deenanath Mangeshkar hospital, Sivaji was the chief guest and was given all the respect a sister could give her brother.

In her glorious career, she had worked with several music composers, but the only composer who she called her "Bhaiya" was the music director Madan Mohan who she called Madan bhaiya .

This sister and brother team worked wonders in their professions as singer and music director, a fact that is prove by their songs created for memorable flims like "Woh Kaun Thi" , "Dastak", "Heer- Ranjha" and " Haqeeqat ".

Volumes can be written about the contributions made to hindi flims music by the team of the brother and sister.

Infact, their music was so spellbinding that when Yash Chopra made "Veer Zara" he wanted the music Madan Mohan had created and asked Lata to sing songs to the tunes of Madan Mohan.

If there was one other man who she treated as her younger brother, it was Dr. Yash Chopra who once told me that he couldn't imagine making of him without the voice of Lata Mangeshkar.

He was so dependent on Lata that he couldn't even think of any of his flims been made without Lata.

A few months before he died , he told me, " main kabhi flim banane ki soch hi nahi sakta , agar meri flim mein Lata ji ka koi gaana nahi ho . Mere liye woh sangeet ki devi hai " .

There was a producer called Bal Navle, who had helped Lata in presenting her flim "Lekin" directed by Gulzaar . Lata called him her brother, but their wasn't the same kind of warmth that Lata had for her other brothers .

AISI MAHAN BAHEN KABHI KABHI MILTI HAI BHAIYON KO . KHUSH NASEEB HAI WOH BHAI JINKO LATA JAISI BAHEN MILI .