Asha steals hearts at Jigar 2000

PUNE, Nov 16: A dash of tongue-in-cheek humour, add to that touching honesty, and top it with a nostalgic remembrance of good old days when ...

PUNE, Nov 16: A dash of tongue-in-cheek humour, add to that touching honesty, and top it with a nostalgic remembrance of good old days when her vocal chords were moulded with the rendition of ragas dawn to dusk by a persistent father Dinanath Mangeshkar…Asha’s story retold but in a musical way. For popular playback singer Asha Bhosale who cried nervousness rather than face the “Hriday Samrat” Bal Thackeray and try to “falsely” make an “erudite” speech, she came up trumps instead as her dulcet tones held sway, just like her singing has for 54 years now.

Jigar-2000, a series of seminars organised by the Shiv Udyog Sena at the Ganesh Kala Krida Manch that saw luminaries addressing and encouraging the youth for nearly a week now, concluded on Sunday as the pop-music singer and Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray went down memory lane, talked of their struggles, faced challenges, won some lost some but never gave up hope and determination to succeed. Asha had the audience eating out of her hands. The happy childhood days when Lata Didi and she practised endlessly to get that swar right, mother’s story of single-handedly bringing up four daughters and one son and the determination to maintain the prestige that is attached with the name of “Mangeshkar” led her to achieve that pinnacle of success.

Poverty can make you or break you. It is upto oneself to be determined to overcome the challenge, the reputed singer said who fondly remembered her first break when Shankarrao Vyas barely heard two lines that Asha sung Tum Jago Mohan Pyare…’ than he triumphantly declared that she did not need to give an examination. She had passed with flying colours. Why should I tell my music producers that I cannot do it. Of course I can, the youthful 50-plus singer said who now prefers to constantly evolve a new style. Age can hardly restrain her zest and enthusiasm to give the world that youthful voice. No wonder she doesn’t feel the generation gap as she strikes a note with the latest in pop music. No she did not lose her cool during times of strife, the singer said as she recalled an instance when along with her month old baby she waited in the rain for a voice test at Naushad’s studio.

Dejected, she may have been, but that didn’t stop her from practising. Endless riyaz, treating each song with the same devotion and care as the first one, Asha said quipping that it was God’s will (she wouldn’t have wished otherwise) that she got to sing playback for the second heroine! In the same philosophical train of thought, she appealed to youngsters to constantly evolve a new pattern, a new style, stay in tune with times and never lose the will.