Dogras and Lata Mangeshkar

Dogri language and the Dogras shall always remain indebted to the Nightingale of India legendary singer Lata Mangeshkar. She left for heavenly abode on 6^th of February 2022 at Breach Candy hospital where had been admitted after Covid infection. Lata Mangeshkar was born on 28 September 1929 and was the eldest among his other three sisters Meena, Asha, Usha and only brother Hridyaaath Mangeshkar was the youngest. Her father, a renowned classical Singer and stage actor Deenanath adopted the surname Mangeshkar in order to identify his family with his native town of  Mangeshi, Goa. Lata was named “Hema” as her birth name. Her parents later renamed her Lata after a female character, Latika, in one of her father’s plays ‘Bhav Bandhan’,( भाव बंधन) She received her first music lesson from her father. At the age of five, she started to work as an actress in her father’s musical plays (Sangeet Natak in Marathi). In 1942, when Mangeshkar was 13, her father died. Vinayak Damodar Karnataki, the owner of Navyug Chitrapat movie company and a close friend of the Mangeshkar family, took care of them. He helped her get started in a career as a singer and actress. She moved to Mumbai in 1945 when Master Vinayak’s company moved its headquarters there. She started taking lessons in Hindustani Classical music from Ustad Aman Ali Khan of Bhendi Bazaar Gharana. After Vinayak’s death in 1948, music director Ghulam Haider mentored her as a singer. Haider gave Lata her first major break with the song “Dil Mera Toda, Mujhe Kahin Ka Na Chhora” in the movie Majboor (1948).   In an interview on her 84th birthday, in September 2013, Lata herself declared, “Ghulam Haider is truly my Godfather. But her gift of four melodious Dogri songs is like a divine gift for the Dogri speaking people. Those songs, if not being exaggeration, gave momentum to the ambitions and aspirations of Dogras for getting their language included in 8^th schedule of the Indian Constitution. These songs not only mesmerized the Dogri speaking people but were equally popular among non- Dogri speaking people. This shall not be wrong to say that Lata immortalized the lyricists along with those appealing songs in the melodic voice. Dogras shall never be in a position to repay that debit to the queen of melody.