Asha Bhosle by Raju Bharatan- Book Review

A must read for fans of a great singer. I am happy that the musical journey of a country has been captured by a serious writer like Raju Bharatan. Being interested in Hindi films and music, I have read several biographies/autobiographies such as those of Dev Anand, but the singers' and music Directors' biographies are special. Having read RD Burman's life story earlier, it is interesting to read about the role played by them in each other's lives.

It was actually OP Nayyar who brought her individuality to the fore, though other music composers played their roles (SD Burman among them). After a split with him, she teamed up with RD Burman and created many songs that shattered records and won them lifelong fans. Some also had RD Burman singing with her (Piya tu ab to aaja, in which he mostly said, Monica, O my darling), and the picturisation of some of the others (the Teesri Manzil songs like Aaja aaja main hoon pyar tera, and O Haseena zulfonwali are good examples) brought her a lot of attention. She was actually good at all types of songs and sang some ghazals for Umrao Jaan impeccably. Her duets with Kishore Kumar and Rafi are among my favourites.

Though she played second fiddle to Lata Mangeshkar, who was the first choice of most music directors, the number of songs Asha sang are a few thousand, and she left an impact in many of them.

A lovely read, if Hindi music interests you.

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