SHE was the younger sister who stepped out of a long shadow to blaze her own trail, but for Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle was never a rival. She was family, a neighbour and a singer who couldn’t be matched. In the book “Lata Mangeshkar...InHerOwnVoice”, a series of conversations with filmmaker and author Nasreen Munni Kabir, the late singer spoke at length about her younger sister and also dismissed talk of rivalry between them. “Asha is so versatile. She can sing all kinds of songs very well - sad songs, dance numbers and cabarets. I am not saying this because she is my sister, but it’s myduty to speak about her qualities. Looking at the variety of songs shecan sing,no singercan match her,” Mangeshkar said in the book. Asked directly about the sibling rivalry that the press had talked about for years, Mangeshkar said, “It’s wrong to talk of rivalry having spoilt our relationship. We are sisters and neighbours.We talk to each other and eat together. If either of us has a problem, we tell each other.

 

And if we have something to celebrate, we celebrate together.” The two sisters lived in neighbouring flats at Prabhu Kunj on Peddar Road in Mumbai. Mangeshkar died in February 2022, while Bhosle passed away on Sunday; both were 92 and breathed their last at Mumbai’s Breach Candy Hospital. Mangeshkar also talked about the musical influences that shaped Bhosle’s distinctive voice, particularly the imprint of composer SDBurman. “When Asha first came onto the scene, her singing was quite different - then she too came under the influence of Burman da and developed his style further. His style was one in which stress was placed on a particular word: ‘Mere ban jaao,’ the word ‘jaao’ is stressed. He introduced thisstyle from Bengali folk singing. O.P. Nayyar used this style as well. “Remember Asha’s ‘Aaiye meherbaan’ in Howrah Bridge - the way she stresses the word ‘Aaiye.’ That’s another example. Asha sang frequently for O P Nayyar. He always chose Shamshad Begum, Geeta Dutt, Rafi Saab and Kishore Kumar to sing his songs. He believed his music didn’t work with my voice and I agreed with him. My voice wasn’t right for his compositions,” she said.