When Alka Yagnik was inducted into Kishore Kumar’s ‘harem’ while travelling in Muscat: ‘He was very mischievous’

“Oh my God, he was hilarious. With a straight face, he used to say a lot of things,” she said. “He used to deliberately mess around with music directors. He’d tell me, ‘Look what I do now’, and then he would purposely sing the wrong word. The music director would come running to tell him that he’d made a mistake, and Kishore da would make a full scene of noting down the correct lyrics. Next time again he would sing the wrong word, and the music director would be pulling out his hair. But when the the take used to start, he would be flawless, seamless.” Asked if he was a ‘one-take’ artist, Alka said, “Absolutely.”

Recalling another story, Alka made a reference to a photo in which Kishore Kumar was dressed as a sheikh. She said, “We’d gone to Muscat, and we went to a photo studio. He dressed up like an Arab, and he made three of us stand behind him. I, Sadhana Sargam, and Sapna Mukherjee. The three of us were supposed to be a part of his harem… He was a child at heart, very mischievous, but a genius. His voice is romance personified.”

Alka began her career in the early 1980s, and is now recognised as the most-streamed artist on YouTube, with over 15 billion streams in 2022. The legendary Kishore Kumar, often regarded as the greatest of all Indian playback singers, died in 1987.