Nation grew up listening to her timeless melodies

How did a Marathi-speaking singer not conversant with Urdu perfect her diction in the language? The answer goes back to 1947 when Lata Mangeshkar met Dilip Kumar for the first time and he expressed doubts over her pronunciation, prompting her to get lessons from a maulana.

Lata had recalled her experiments with Urdu in Kumar’s autobiography “The Substance and the Shadow” and said Kumar gave her a gift “unknowingly and unhesitatingly” in their first meeting itself. She was introduced to the actor by composer Anil Biswas.

Lata Mangeshkar traced her roots to Goa

Mumbai: Indore-born Lata Mangeshkar, whose immortal voice held sway over generations, traced her roots to the Mangeshi village in the coastal state of Goa. Lord Mangesh, whose idol is situated at the famous temple of Mangeshi in Goa, was her family deity and that’s how the traditional Brahmin family came to be associated with the title of ‘Mangeshkar’.

Attended school only for a day

New Delhi: On her first day to school, Lata Mangeshkar took younger sister Asha, then aged about 10 months, with her and when her teacher objected to it, she angrily went back home never to return again. She learnt Marathi alphabets from her house help who taught the singer to read and write the basics.

Museum has 7,600 gramophone records

Indore: A museum in Indore in Madhya Pradesh has a collection of 7,600 rare gramophone records of songs of Lata. Suman Chourasia, who set up this 1600 sq ft museum in Pigdambar area in 2008, said his grief was beyond words. Chourasia said he started saving gramophone records of Mangeshkar’s songs from 1965.