A look at one of India’s first pop stars and the most recorded artiste in the world, Asha Bhosle, on the occasion of her 90th birthday.
When filmmaker Muzaffar Ali wanted to capture a subject as poetic as Umrao Jaan Ada, the famed Awadh courtesan and the eponymous subject of Mirza Hadi Ruswa’s 1905 novel on celluloid, he was certain that noted actor Rekha would be apt for the role. The grief had to be overwhelming, the sensuality riveting while the borders of two were to be dissolved often. And, therefore, he and composer Khayyam decided that the singing voice in Umrao Jaan (1981) needed to come with some heft.
The obvious choice for the ghazalnuma gayaki of the film would have been Lata Mangeshkar, the pre-eminent name that had held the nation in thrall in the genre with Madan Mohan earlier, and especially after Pakeezah, which nine years before, had immortalised the song of the courtesan through Ghulam Mohammed’s compositions. But Ali, then a young filmmaker with one film, Gaman (1978), in his cache, felt that Mangeshkar’s voice could be “slightly high-pitched for the character” of Amiran, a girl kidnapped from Faizabad and who becomes Lucknow’s most popular shayara and courtesan in the mid-20th century. As for Khayyam, he was concerned about not wanting a Pakeezah hangover. Ali was portraying the last gasp of Awadh – its opulence and the demise. So, they both agreed on Asha Bhosle, “the versatile voice with an incredible range” for the voice of Umrao Jaan. “Khayyam sahab and I felt that she could make it sound like a non-film song, a ghazal. Asha ji came with a lot of experience and commitment. She asked me to recite the book to her, then the poetry. She came for many many rehearsals and brought life to the songs and the film,” says 78-year-old Ali.
The result was a bunch of ghazals that captured the heart of a generation. Penned by Shahryar, ‘Inn aakhon ki masti ke’, ‘Dil cheez kya hai’, ‘Justju jiski thi’ and ‘Ye kya jagah hai doston’ – the four ghazals, sung one and half note below Bhosle’s usual pitch, perhaps to suit Rekha’s speaking voice, got the singer the first National Award of her career, nearly 30 years after she first began to sing. Composer Khayyam would often say that Bhosle was unhappy during the recording but the final pieces surprised her, too. Soon, the songs found a cult status. It was alsi proof that Bhosle — the voice of the vamp who could sing the cabaret song with much aplomb – could nail the semi-classical film ghazal and be brilliant at it. She was younger to Mangeshkar by four years but in no way second rung. Nor was she there only to sing the leftovers, which she did for many years at the beginning of her career.