Mumbai: Playback singer Suman Kalyanpur was always compared with legendary Lata Mangeshkar. There was a reported rift between them over certain issues. However, Kalyanpur, who passed away on Sunday night in Mumbai, had dismissed the speculation in an exclusive chat with this correspondent almost three decades ago. She had responded with characteristic grace and a smile: “I have nothing to say about this. Lata-didi is like my elder sister. We respect each other. I just do my

Mumbai : The legendary singer Asha Bhosle - who passed away here aged 92 on April 12 - once lived far from the arc lights of fame, in the distant north-west suburb of Borivali, in the early 1950s, when she was still a struggling artist finding her voice. In those difficult days, she developed an enduring affection for the humble trains. When buses and taxis were beyond her means, Asha-tai relied on the Western Railway’s suburban locals, travelling across the city for her re

Asha Tai’s singing held intensity, grace, playfulness and rebellion. It was full of longing, mischief, boldness, and the restless spirit of life itself. I will deeply miss Asha Tai. Yet I know her songs—deeply and personally. They remain with me; they have not gone anywhere, and they never will. Those songs are my only connection with her, and that connection is eternal. I have lived with them, grown with them, and leaned on them through every phase of life. I listen to them

To me, the demise of Asha Bhosle signifies the "Hope of my Elder Sister." In this war-torn world, she spreads hope through her eternal longing for love in "Salona Sajan." Amid the darkness engulfing West Asia and the Middle East, Asha Tai evokes Macbeth's words: "Let not light see my dark desires." Through her melancholic and lustful "Tanha Tanha," she illuminates humanity's dark desires, while in A.R. Rahman's "Kahi Aag Lage," she cries out in fiery defiance. To imitate huma

The passing away of Asha Bhosle feels less like the death of a singer and more like the silencing of an entire sensibility. For nearly eight decades, she was not merely a voice behind the screen but the sound of Indian cinema learning to be bold, expressive, irreverent and when it wished, delightfully unruly. Born into the formidable Mangeshkar family, the younger sister of Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle was destined for music but not for imitation. Where Lata Didi embodied a n