How did the nightingale of India Lata Mageshkar get her original name as Hema Hardikar?

How Hema Hardikar came to be called Lata Mangeshkar – the name by which the world knows her – is a fascinating story that begins in the village of Mardol, just eleven kilometres from my own native village of Divar, in Goa - Jyothi Venkatesh

On the outskirts of Mardol is the Mangeshi temple, dedicated to Lord Shiva in his form as Mangesh or Manguirish.

The deity had been shifted here in 1560 when the Portuguese occupied Kushasthali (now Cortalim, on the banks of the Zuari), and in course of time a magnificent temple was constructed unlike any other in India, its unique architecture with its domes, tiled roof, balustrades and balconies is typically Goan, reflecting a blend of Christian and Muslim elements in an overall traditional Hindu layout, but different from temple buildings elsewhere, in that it is bright, airy and spacious, its mahamandapa adorned with chandeliers and large windows topped by Gothic trefoil arches.

In this temple town lived a Karhade Brahmin bhatt or temple priest by the name of Ganesh Hardikar in the late 1800s. Also in the temple lived a devdasi by the name of Yesubai, who sang and danced before the deity on festival days.

At the turn of the century, in 1900, a son was born to Ganesh and Yesubai, and they named him Deenanath. Deenanath was very talented, excelling in music and singing.

He felt that Mardol was too small to contain his talent and that he would do better in drama, because of which, in 1920, he shifted to Pune, with its thriving Marathi stage.

In an attempt to retain his links with his childhood temple town he took to calling himself Mangeshkar instead of Hardikar.

At 22 he met and married the daughter of a rich businessman, and they were blessed with a daughter, whom they named Latika. Alas, the infant died, and soon after her mother too passed away.

A distraught Deenanath married his sister-in-law, Shevanti. In 1929 he was again blessed with a daughter whom he named Hema.

But in memory of his eldest child Latika, who had died in infancy, he used to call Hema Lata – and the name stuck. And that is how Hema Hardikar grew up as Lata Mangeshkar. The rest is history.

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