The Indian nightingale Lata Mangeshkar turns 91 today. The legendary singer, who has an illustrious career in playback singing, started her professional journey at the tender age of 13. She has given her voice to over 25,000 songs during her 78-year-long professional career. Let’s take a look at 10 lesser-known facts about the celebrated singer.
1) Lata Mangeshkar’s mother Shevanthi was the second wife of his father Dinanath Mangeshkar. His first wife Narmada was Lata’s maternal aunt who passed away early into their marriage. After her death, Dinanath married Shevanthi in 1927.
2) The singer is the first child of her parents. She was born in 1929 and has four siblings namely Meena, Asha Bhosle, Usha and Hridaynath.
3) Her father, Dinanath was an actor in theatre and a classical singer. This exposed her to the art of music at a tender age.
4) Lata was named Hema at the time of her birth but later, her name was changed to Lata after the name of a character Latika in a play of her father named Bhaaw Bandhan.
5) While her singing talent is known to everyone, Lata also acted in one of the plays of her father when she was a five-year-old.
6) Although Lata spent most of her adult life in Mumbai, she was born in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, and spent 16 years of her life in the city.
7) Lata recorded her first song in the year 1942 for the Marathi film Kiti Hasaal but it never got released as it was dropped from the final cut.
8) The leading female playback singer also composed music for some of the Marathi films under the pseudonym Anandghan.
9) Lata’s patriotic song Ae Mere Watan Ke Logon moved Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to tears on January 27, 1963, at Ramlila Maidan, New Delhi. The song was dedicated to the soldiers who lost their lives in the 1962 war.
10) The singer considers music director Ghulam Haider as her Godfather because as per Lata, Ghulam showed complete faith in Lata’s talent.
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