India has lost its voice. The soundtrack of joys, sorrows, heartbreaks and love. Lata Mangeshkar, the melody queen, has left us. India’s first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru wept when she sang–“Aye mere watan ke logon”.A seventy-year-old glorious career,30,000 songs, a Bharat Ratna, a Dadasaheb Phalke award and an unparalleled legacy. But not many people know that Lata Mangeshkar had a secret passion–photography. She’s said to have a pretty fantastic collection of professional cameras, and singer Chinmayi Sripada recently posted an unseen throwback picture of Lata Mangeshkar clicking the photo of AR Rahman and lyricist Prasoon Josh. Latadi holds a phone in the image as she captures AR Rehman and Prasoon Joshi with her camera. Chinmayi Sripada is seen looking at AR Rehman smiling. The photo is from the sets of the film–RANG DE BASANTI. Lata Mangeshkar, legendary for her singing, was an outstanding photographer. When she was younger, there were exhibitions of her photography. She was so devoted to her Rolleiflex camera that it went everywhere with her. She would take her camera to the studio and take pictures of her colleagues at work. She’d click her parents, her sisters and brother at home. She loved photographing the outdoors too. Latadi had reams and reams of self clicked photographs in her home. Latadi’s voice goes straight to the heart of gender politics in India. Her voice came to be identified entirely with Indian feminity. Public singing had the taint of shame and was the preserve of the courtesan, the lower caste women or the tribal women. But it was the ideology of a pure and respectable national culture that found voice in Latadi’s singing. Bittu the labrador, social service, cricket, playing slot machines, vehicles and travelling were some of Latadi’s other loves. She ate green chillies to keep her voice sweet and loved cooking Kolhapuri mutton.
By Lippi Parida