07/02/2022
We prayed for her immortality. Her voice registered our
strengths and frailties. She
soothed us when everything
was lost, her aural sensuality
was present in our first kiss,
and her pleading for unity
cut through a sharply divided society. Each one of us
created an unbreakable personal bond with her.
We often associate playback singers with specific actors. The singer becomes the
musical expression — an extension — of the actor. This is
so well established that
when an actor completes a
dialogue and the scene
segues into a song, we do not
notice a difference; the voices merge. Lata Mangeshkar’s
voice did not belong to any
one actor; she was every actor’s voice. It would be appropriate to say her voice
was theirs! She did not hide
her presence behind the actors; you always knew it was
her. The actor became
Lata’s expressive moving picture. Yet, her
personality never mediated
our relationship
with the
story. It was as if her voice
worked for any one, any situation and any era. Hence,
there was no need for that illusionary trick. This seems
contradictory, even impossible, but it did happen.
We speak of playback singers being influenced by the
voice, mannerisms and accent of actors they represented. In Lata’s case, I
would argue that every actor’s acting improved when
they heard her track being
played for a song they were
filming. How could it not?
Watch any scene of a song
she rendered and it is as if
she coaxed the actors to
come up to her standards of
emotivity.
Emotion in music is spoken of in esoteric terms, or
as something that happens
through experience and maturity. Otherwise, we are
told, internalise the meaning, understand the context,
the melody and involve
yourself in the singing and
emotionality will be transferred into the song. We may
feel the song in our bones
but our rendition can still
lack the needed emotive
layering. Emotional communication in music is a technique. It exists in the way we
use our voice; we enunciate
each syllable and our treatment of the melodic and
rhythmic cadences in the
song. With Lata, every second oozed emotion; it
was in the way she sang.
The minor shifts in to nality, the timbral
and
decibel control over a musical phrase and the way the
words were enunciated.
Reading a line of poetry
has little to do with singing
it. When I say mohabbat, I
am speaking of love; when I
sing, it is the essence of love.
That inner resonance appears because the word is
not tightly bound by its own
construction. It spreads its
wings inviting us to romance
its every consonant and vowel. Lata gave musical life to
every syllable she sang. The
meaning of the word was felt
even before the word was
completed. And then there
was the last note! That tantalising drop at the end of a
musical turn, curve, statement or question. The line
was over but Lata’s voice remained for just that extra microsecond, gifting that last
note a memory. The next
line began from its silent listening. I can still hear that
dissolving note, it was magic.
Supersonic phrases
Speed is often overglorifi�ed.
Singers deliberately direct
our attention towards it, and
the felicity of their voice. But
the brilliance of speed is
when the rush, the adrenaline, is not known. Lata sang
supersonic phrases without
bravado. When you watched
the song sequence, you did
not even know that she had
executed something demanding. It seemed as easy
as the actor’s mime. The
sheer control behind
these renditions
should not be categorised just
as technical proviso.
The
complexity of the melody
never came in the way of her
emotive power. In the case of
other singers, emotion
would wane and wax within
one song. There would be
moments when their hearts
were present in the music,
and times when they were
only aiming for musical accuracy. That was never the
case with Lata. She did not
make her vocal virtuosity
obvious. She just made us
smile, cry, love and celebrate, unaware of the musical brilliance.
Through the decades, Lata’s voice aged and all of us
recognised that. But the
voice never became old!
Another paradox. There are
voices that do not age; there
are those that become old.
But to age yet remain young
is rare. The ageing was physical, her vocal cords did tire,
there was a perceptible
tremble in the voice, but she
did not sound old. Her musical expression was young.
By young, I am not referring
to youthfulness, but rather
the quality of being alive.
This spirit gave her voice
bloom.
Lata had her detractors.
Some complained that her
voice was too shrill; just as
they said of M.S. Subbulakshmi, the nightingale
from the South. Lata is not
versatile enough, they complained. But all this did not
matter because, she was the
song. If there was one criticism that took the sheen off�
the Lata enigma, it was that
she suppressed other talents
from emerging during her
reign. I am certain there are
many truths to this and no
single one will give us the
whole picture.
I think of Lata and a mystical land comes to my mind.
She exists in my dream sequence and her voice emanates from an unseen person. I search for her knowing
fully well we will never meet.
She fl�its in and then vanishes. And I wait patiently for
the next time. But unlike that
dreamland voice, Lata was
always present. As far as I am
concerned, she has not
moved on; she remains with
us, our celestial voice.
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