Lata’s Indelible Impact on Indian Women
See full list of the songs linked from this post in this playlist on Apple Music
If you are an Indian woman who listened to Hindi music and came of age in the 20th century, it’s likely that songs by Lata Mangeshkar not only entertained you, but also created the soundtrack of the life that you imagined, as well as the one you are living.
When it comes to the various hues of love alone, Lata’s voice captured and capsulized every stage — from first love to soul connection, girlish questions to adult reflection. From leaning into it to standing by it, the surrender of risk-taking to the sweetness of homemaking, philosophical pondering to wistful waiting, flirtation to intoxication, betrayal to heartbreak, adulation to resignation.
Lata could give voice to anyone from a devoted wife to a forbidden love, a gypsy to a nightclub singer. A mother, expectantly hopeful, often doting, sometimes desperate. A daughter, a sister, a friend or a foe. She echoed souls that reached across lifetimes and ghosts who searched for what was lost a lifetime ago. Her songs had the power to examine life’s bitter realities and triumph its inevitable struggles. Her voice was a sacred welcome to the morning, a magnetic promise of the evening, and a secret whisper of the stories of the night.
Through song she immortalized Anarkali and Laila. She was the original Kanta Laga girl and the healing balm for a nation grieving the lost lives of soldiers. Her melodies brought heroines to life in an unforgettable way and made ordinary women feel like the heroines of their own lives.
From Amrapali to Agar Tum Na Hote, Barsat Ki Raat to Bobby, Chori Chori to Chandni, Gunga Jumna to Guide, Kabhi Kabhie to Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gum, Mahal to Mohabaatein, Woh Kaun Thi to Waaris, Lata provided women with love anthems and musical mantras for every decade.
In a career that stretched from pre-partition days to the modern socio-political movement of women in India, her songs manifested the feminine and the formidable, resulting in a timeless yet evolving appeal to women of every generation, regardless of class or creed. Her perfect voice is a prism that allows us to experience every emotion possible, inviting us to be vulnerable and resilient, shy and bold, spunky and pensive, young and old, hopeful and cynical, all in the span of one film, one day, one year, one lifetime.
Immortal may be a term used for the gods, but Lata is an eternal force that can only be embodied by a woman, for she is a gift, a soft breeze sent down from the heavens to magically move the hearts and souls Indian girls and women of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
