The Asha with the effervescent voice

By: Ali Peter John, IndiaFM
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Her elder sister may be the Bharat Ratna and the Nightingale of India, a woman blessed with a voice which has been a blessing for millions of home, a fact everyone knows and no one questions. I believed she is as talented and sometimes even more talented than her sister and I know there will be many who will agree with me, if they have a sense of balance or knowing the right things. I am talking about Ashatai (Bhonsle).

Why should Ashatai always be compared to her sister? Why should Ashatai always play second fiddle which is not what she deserves to do with all her enormous treasure of talent? These and some other questions often bother my mind, every time I listen to a song sung by Ashatai. Who am I to question the unprecedented popularity of Lataji, popularity almost bordering on worship? But there are times when I wonder why Ashatai has not been given her due in the last fifty years? Why should she be neglected when she has been as devoted to music, to the glory of music as her sister? I am sure the swar ki mallika must be asking herself the same question and finding it helpless to find answers because they are in the places they are in not because they have created by them but by the listeners, the critics and the masses of music-mad people.

Ashatai is seventy-six but can still swing and sway with Sanjay Dutt for an album. Ashatai is seventy-six and she can still sing "One, Two, cha cha cha" and "Churaliya Hain Tumne Jo Dil Ko" and win the hearts of generations which can be as old as her grand children. Ashatai is seventy-six and she can still sing the best "bhajans", the best "bhavgeet", the best "lokgeet", the best "koligeet" or the best "lori" and any other kind of song that the changing time and test demand. She is seventy-six and can still rock and roll at concerts and she does shows all over the world for hours and keeps the audience mesmerized and enthralled. Ashatai is seventy-six and she is busy cutting international albums with international singers like Dennis Robbins and Bret Lee the Australian fast bowler who has taken to singing slow, shock and melodies songs.

And now Ashatai is planning to come out with her autobiography which she says will tell the entire truth about her life and the lives of people around her which she makes special mention will include special portions on her elder sister, Latatai. The autobiography will be simultaneously published in Marathi, English and Hindi. What all will she includes in her book? Will she talk about the days when she stood outside recording studios with a hungry baby in her arms, looking for work? Will she talk about the dire poverty she lived in when she had just one sari to wear and when she never knew how the next meal for the family would come? Will she talk about her first married with Mr. Bhonsle? Will she talk about the part played by the late O.P. Nayyar? Will she talk about her most talked about romance with her Pancham, R.D. Burman, a romance which blossomed when other women turned grandmothers. Will she talk about the so called rivalry with her sister? Will she talk about how the industry treated her at various times and how she faced all the threats and triumphed with hope?

All these are just guesses, questions in the air. Ashatai has achieved what very few women have. She is as important as her sister, there are many who are willing to commit the sin of blasphemy and say. I have often said that she too deserves a Bharat Ratna. And if there are people who wonder how there can be two Bharat Rantans in one family, I ask why not if both of them are genuine Ratnas. Why can't there be two Ratnas in a family? Is there any law against it? I leave these questions to all those who find answers to such questions.

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