Photos: The life and times of Indian singing legend Lata Mangeshkar

India’s nightingale has gone silent following the death of legendary singer Lata Mangeshkar, who spent the last month in a hospital after testing positive for COVID-19, which was further complicated when she developed pneumonia.

Even as tributes poured in from leaders, politicians, the film fraternities and fans, Mangeshkar’s legacy remains intact as the melody queen from India who once famously moved late Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to tears with a rendition of ‘Ae Mere Watan Ke Logon’ during a performance in New Delhi in 1963. The song was composed in honour of Indian soldiers who lost their lives on the battlefield.

Born on September 28, 1929, Mangeshkar was the oldest child of a family from Indore that was musically inclined. The family included father Dinanath, Lata, Meena (Khadilkar), Asha (Bhosle), Usha and sole brother Hridaynath - she was tutored by her dad from the age of five and also acted in his musical stage plays, until his death in 1942.

Helped by a close family friend, Master Vinayak D. Karnataki, she got a foothold in singing and acting that year with a first Marathi song and a maiden Hindi song in 1943 before shifting to the film industry capital in 1945.

In Bombay (now, Mumbai), she learnt classical music and continued singing the odd songs, till her big break with 'Dil Mera Toda, Mujhe Kahinka Na Chhoda' ('Majboor', 1948), with full help from Ghulam Haider, whom she later described as her "godfather". With time the young powerhouse flourished and got her first major hit with ‘Uthaye Ja Unke Sitam’ ('Andaz', 1949), composed by her mentor Naushad Ali. With it, she 'arrived' in the film industry and has never looked back.

She soon began to work with a robust raft of maestros including Shankar Jaikishen, Madan Mohan, Salil Choudhury, Kishore Kumar (pictured) and more. After the seniors passed away or faded out, Mangeshkar sang expertly and easily with the gen next of male singers such as S.P. Balasubramaniam, Amit Kumar, Shabbir Kumar, Nitin Mukesh, Anwar, Udit Narayan and Sonu Nigam, and astounded her listeners with the seemingly "undying" power and youthfulness of her golden voice.

If the late acting legend Dilip Kumar described her voice as a ‘miracle of nature’s creativity’ and compared her voice to an innocent child who knows no religion or a cool breeze belonging to no country, veteran actor Amitabh Bachchan on her 90th birthday posted a seven-minute-long video about how ‘music is incomplete without her voice.’ When legendary lyricist and song-writer Javed Akhtar was on call to introduce her on stage, he began saying that no words of flattery would do justice to Mangeshkar’s legacy or body of work. Her name was the final word in Indian music.

With a career spanning seven decades, the famously single vocalist sung more than 25,000 songs in Indian films and has lent her voice to songs in over 36 Indian languages in her lifetime. The Bharat Ratna awardee and three-time National Award winning singer will be best remembered for her songs such as ‘Lag Ja Gale’, ‘Ek Pyaar Ka Nagma Hai’, ‘Kabhie Kabhi’ and ‘Tere Bina Zindagi Se’ that continue to inspire even today.

Over her career, she has been the voice of many a female star, think Madhu Bala in the 1940s to Preity Zinta in 2000s. If we fell in love with Sridevi just a little more as she crooned ‘Tere Mere Hoton Par’ in ‘Chandni’ or swooned with joy to Kajol’s ‘Tujhe Dekha To Ye Jaana’ in ‘Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge’, then a large credit of that goes to Mangeshkar who has been the voice of generations. (With inputs from IANS)