Lata Mangeshkar, iconic Bollywood singer and India’s ‘Nightingale’, dies at 92

Lata Mangeshkar’s singing career stretched across eight decades.(AP: Rajesh Nirgude/File photo)

Lata Mangeshkar, a legendary Indian singer with a prolific catalogue and a voice recognised by more than one billion people across South Asia, has died at the age of 92.

The iconic singer died on Sunday morning of multiple organ failure at Breach Candy hospital in Mumbai, her doctor, Pratit Sandaun, said.

She was hospitalised on January 11 after contracting COVID-19.

She was taken off the ventilator after her condition improved late last month but her health deteriorated on Saturday and she was put back on life support.

India declared two days of national mourning and said that Mangeshkar would be given a state funeral before being cremated in Mumbai on Sunday evening.

The country’s flags will fly at half-staff.

Condolence messages poured in immediately after her death was announced.

“I am anguished beyond words,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a tweet.

Over the course of nearly eight decades, Mangeshkar was a major presence as a playback singer, singing songs that were later lip-synced by actors in India’s lavish Bollywood musicals.

She was also fondly revered as the Melody Queen and Nightingale of India.

Sang about unrequited love and Indian nationalism

Mangeshkar’s songs, always filled with emotion, were often sad and mostly dealt with unrequited love, but others involved national pride.

Born in Maharashtra on September 28, 1929, Mangeshkar first sang at religious gatherings with her father, who was also a trained singer.

After she moved to Mumbai, India’s film industry capital, she became a star with immensely popular appeal, enchanting audiences with her smooth but sharp voice and immortalising Hindi music for decades to come.

Few musicians defined versatility like Mangeshkar, who issued her debut song in 1942 for a Bollywood film when she was just 13.

Soon after, she became an icon of Hindi singing, lending her voice to over 5,000 songs in over a thousand Bollywood and regional language films.

She sang for Bollywood’s earliest women superstars like Madhubala and Meena Kumari and later went on to give voice to modern divas like Priyanka Chopra.

Mangeshkar was still in her 20s when she had already been established as one of the best playback singers in India. But her career-defining moment came in the epic historical Mughal-e-Azam, a romantic tragedy that was released in 1960.

Its soundtrack Pyar Kiya To Darna Kya? (Why fear if you are in love?) is considered one of the most memorable in Bollywood films, one that over decades has become an undisputed epitome of love’s often rebellious nature.

Throughout her career, Mangeshkar worked with nearly all legendary Indian music directors, including Madan Mohan, Naushad, SD Burman, RD Burman, the duo Laxmikant-Pyarelal and AR Rahman, selling tens of millions of records.

She also won dozens of singing awards, earning her a near saint-like status in the Bollywood music industry.

“I can’t believe I’ve been tolerated by music lovers for 75 years,” she said last year in an interview with the news website Rediff.

Mangeshkar’s popularity extended far beyond India. She was celebrated not only in neighbouring Pakistan and Bangladesh but also in some Western countries.

In 2001, she was awarded the “Bharat Ratna,” India’s highest civilian honour.

The government of France conferred on her its highest civilian award, Officier de la Legion d’Honneur, in 2007.

In December, Mangeshkar commemorated eight decades of her debut on radio.

She wrote on Twitter in Hindi:

Mangeshkar never married. She is survived by four siblings, all accomplished singers and musicians.

AP/ABC