UNKI AWAAZ JITNI SHAANDAAR AUR SUREELI THI , UTNI HI UNKI SAADGI THI... BY ALI PETER JOHN

It is very difficult to be great and simple and humble . But there are some human beings who are a wonderful combination of both . I know of a very great man like Dilip Kumar who had this rare combination in him , and now I know of a wonderful creation of God , who incidentally was the chhoti behen of Dilip Kumar, a goddess like human being called Lata Mangeshkar who was born to be both great and simple at the same time and she lived and died without changing her life style in any way - Ali Peter John

Lataji always remembered her days of struggling after her father Pandit Deenanath Mangeshkar died leaving his family of four daughters and one son and their mother, Mai .

She worked as a child artist in theatre and later in Marathi films , for which she was paid a few rupees and she remembered her struggles with her family in Wakeshwar in Central Mumbai and how she used to travel by train to Malad where she faced what are called auditions today and how composers like Ghulam Hyder , and Khemchand Prakash saw her talent and Khemchand Prakash had given her the first break with the song "ayega aane waala" after which she never had to look back till she could sing.

Lataji had no great ambitions and dreams or desires . She always wore a white saari which was not so expensive and her white saari had a colourful border whenever it was a festival like Deewali or the festival of Ganpati.

She always had a red tika on her forehead and when people asked her why she had the tika , she smiled mysteriously and never let anyone know the secret till the end. White gajras in her hair ment that she was in a very happy mood or it was an occasion to celebrate in her family .

The only luxuries she had was a particular brand of perfume which too she used mostly when she was abroad . And the biggest luxury she had were the pure gold paayals she wore on her feet which Rekha admired and perhaps even envied .

Her food habits were very simple too . She was a shudh shaakaari even when she was on her many shows abroad , but she loved sweets of any kind and especially the sweets prepared at home with her joining her sisters in preparing them .

She was not very spiritually inclined , but she performed all the rituals and pojaas at home at the temple her family had in their own house , but she made it a point to visit all the major shrines , especially the Mangeshi temple in Goa which was the temple of her kuldevta and she visited the shrine of Shirdi regularly and the last time she was there was when she was extremely weak and yet climbed all the steps without any help

Lataji was an extremely passionate lover of photography . She had a collection of some of the best cameras and equipments .

She had several important photographers like Mohan Wagh and R M Kumtakar who were her close friends and they met once in a month and exchanged notes about the recent cameras and equipment and she loved showing them what pictures she had shot in India and abroad and I once told her that she could have been a better photographer than a singer and she had blushed .

I once even told her that she could be a better cricketer than Sachin Tendulkar and her eyes shut when she blushed and she had said ,. " Agle janam mein cricketer hi toh banna hai "

She was a complete family woman . She took care of her mother Mai when she was very sick and was a great help to her family whenever they needed her help

Lataji could have built a bungalow of her own , but she didn't move from Prabhu Kunj because she believed that the building was genuinely blessed by her Prabhu .

She could have had the best and latest models of cars , but she kept traveling in most simple cars and her last car was a NE 118 in which she traveled even when she was a Bharat Ratna and when I asked her why she couldn't go for a better car , she said , " main koi star thodi hoon , main iss gaadi se khush hoon.

Aur sab jama karke kya faayda hai ? Ek din toh chaar kando par safar karna hai" . And she always had the greatest respect for her fans all over the world and for all those people who worked for her like her secretaries, her cooks and other house helps and for a young man called Mahesh who took very good care of her towards the last years of her life

Personally speaking , I will always remember the freedom she gave me to meet her at anytime and anywhere and I was moved when she once stopped her car when she saw me walking on a road near Flora Fountain and dropped me wherever I had to go and then went to her recording .

That morning I felt as if I was a star bigger than any star , because I was traveling with a goddess who had come to this earth as a favour to this world which would not have been what it is if it was not for surki sur sajni , amar Lata Mangeshkar jo amar thi aur amar rahegi .