Lata Mangeshkar was groomed in the art of playback singing—diction, pronunciation, voice modulation and breath control—by Master Ghulam Haider, Anil Biswas and Naushad Ali. She went on to team up with composers as varied as C. Ramchandra, Shankar-Jaikishan, S D Burman, R D Burman and A R Rahman, and found favour even with purists like Madan Mohan, Roshan, Khayyam, Sajjad Hussain, Jaidev, Vasant Desai, Salil Chowdhary, and Hridayanath whose creations were steeped in Indian ragas.

The appeal partly lay in her incredible vocal range—it extended beyond three octaves, allowing collaborators to experiment with form and content. Anil Biswas would say she inspired them to work on innovative musical phrases. “Hindi cinema was looking for a pan-Indian voice to suit female leads of varying extracts—Vyjayanthimala and Hema Malini came from south, Sharmila Tagore and Raakhee from Bengal, while Nutan was a Maharashtrian. Mangeshkar answered the need,” said film chronicler Veerchand Dharamsey.

Pointing out that her 1947 debut coincided with Partition, Prakash Joshi, a musicophile with a collection of 4,000 Lata songs, said her songs helped heal the wounds of communal frenzy. “‘Hawa mein udta jaaye’ (from Barsaat) was enough to put a smile on India’s lips, replacing horror with hope,” he said.

Born in Indore on September 28, 1929, to Deenanath and Shevanti Mangeshkar, she was trained in classical music by her father, an actor-singer from Goa, who owned a drama company. Eldest among five siblings, her passion for singing was evident as early as age four.

Master Deenanath’s death in 1945 altered her life’s course. She joined Prafulla Pictures, a film company helmed by producer-actor Master Vinayak Karnataki and became the family’s sole breadwinner at 14. Hindi film composer Ghulam Haider, a Lahore migrant, was quick to spot her potential. When producer S. Mukherjee, whose ‘Shaheed’ was on the floors, rejected the thin voice which, he said, wouldn’t suit the female lead, an angry Haider stormed out of Mukherjee’s Filmistan studio in Goregaon with Lata in tow, but not before warning the movie moghul that his protegee would become a superstar.

“That afternoon Master-ji and I trekked to Goregaon railway station. Master-ji said he would find me an opening in Bombay Talkies. The platform was deserted. We sat on a wooden seat. Tapping lightly on his 555 cigarette tin, he taught me a song,” Mangeshkar told TOI in a 1998 interview. ‘Dil mera tora,’ from ‘Majboor’ brought instant success, and was followed by ‘Aayega aanewala’ from Mahal (1949). As the 78 rpm record sleeve of Mahal didn’t carry her name, radio stations were flooded with calls from admirers eager to know the singer’s identity. Between 1947 and 1951, her popularity soared. This phase coincided with singing star Noorjahan’s migration to Pakistan and the gradual fading away of Suraiya.

A moment of glory came when she was invited to a midnight congregation at Shivaji Park on May 1, 1960 to mark the formation of the state of Maharashtra with a Marathi prayer song. Three years later, her voice rang out at a rally in Delhi to raise funds for families of soldiers who died in the Indo-China war. Jawaharlal Nehru fought back tears as he heard ‘Ae mere watan ke logon.’ After the event he met her and said, ‘Beti, aaj tumne mujhe rula diya” (You brought tears to my eyes today).’

Mangeshkar reigned in the 1970s-’80s despite drastic changes in taste. Languorousilting tunes gave way to heavy orchestration and fast beats. She was quick to adapt, crooning for composers half her age (Rajesh Roshan, Bhappie Lahiri, Jatin Lalit, Raam Laxman), as also with GenNext singers S. P. Balasubramaniam, Sonu Nigam, Suresh Wadkar.

Though she cut down on assignments, her ‘Dil deewana bin sajna ke’ from Maine Pyaar Kiya set the mood for the vibrant 1990s. She took Youngistan by storm with ‘Tu mere saamne’ (Darr), ‘Gori hai kalaiyaan ‘ (Aaj Ka Arjun), ‘Yaara sili sili’ (Lekin), ‘Didi tera dewar (Hum Aapke Hain Kaun), ‘Chhai chhappa chhai’ (Hu Tu Tu). Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge became a cult, post-globalisation film, reviving romance with frothy numbers like ‘Mere, khwabon mein jo aaye’, ‘Mehndi laga ke rakhna’ (the Lata-Udit Narayan duet is played at wedding receptions even today) and ‘Tujhe dekha toh yeh’ (with Kumar Sanu). ‘Luka chuppi’, a moving piece, from Rang De Basanti, is considered her swan song, a sort of grand finale to an epic life.