Lata Mangeshkar- Nightingale of India

A beautiful song with good lyrics and sung by great singer can inspire your soul. Music has such a tremendous effect in everyone’s life. World has been inspired with many such great musicians who have rendered their melody making us grove for their tune. Lata Mangeshkar, the Nightingale of India is the greatest playback singer world has ever seen. She is the encyclopedia of music. She has been honored with the highest honors in India like Bharat Ratna (2001), Dada Saheb Phalke Award, Padma Bhushan and Padma Vibhushan.

Lata Mangeshkar was born in Madhya Pradesh. Her father, Deenanath Mangeshkar was a classical singer and theater artist. Her music career started as early as the age of five, when she started assisting her father, in his musical plays. Her father passed away when she was 13 and then her struggle in the real world began.

Being eldest in the family, she has to step up to the role of bread winner for her siblings and her mother. She started singing in temples to earn money to feed her family. 

Lata started exploring opportunities to song in movies. In 1940, Indian music industry was influenced by Nasal voices; Lata was rejected from many projects because it was believed that her voice was too high-pitched and thin. She acted in as many as eight films in Hindi and Marathi to take care of economic hardships of her family. She made her debut as a playback singer in the Marathi film but, ironically, the song was edited out. She had to go through her hardships. She got a break in 1948 and she never looked back in her career spanning 70 years till date.

Mangeshkar was featured in the Guinness Book of World Records from 1974 to 1991 for having made the most recordings in the world. She has recorded no less than 25,000 solo, duet, and chorus-backed songs in 20 Indian languages between 1948 to 1974. In this entire journey of music, she saw many ups and downs of life with many music directors. She fought for royalty rights for singers. She was the first singer in India to fight and win the royalty rights for every song a singer sings.

She has sung with almost all major music directors in India. She has made a tremendous contribution to music inspiring millions of people through her music. She has song many songs of various varieties entertaining people across the globe. She is a true inspiration to the world.