It's all in the family: No love lost between Lata and Asha

Sisters Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle have always been the poster girls for sibling rivalry in the Hindi film industry. Those close to the Mangeshkar sisters have vouched that they don’t share the best of relationships. So pronounced were the differences at one point that the music industry was reportedly split into two camps — each working with one of the sisters.

Whispers of the rivalry found stage in 1998 when director Sai Paranjape painted a story of two sisters on screen, one that was eerily similar to the plot of Lata and Asha’s life. Asha had said then, “It’s not true at all. To have two women in long plaits, take a couple of incidents and exaggerate them into a three-hour film is such a waste of time.”

Now, a television show attempted the same in March this year. Meri Awaaz Hi Pehchaan Hai, curiously borrowed its title from one of Lataji’s iconic songs, but vehemently denied having anything to do with the sisters’ real life stories.

Fiction Head for &TV, Vikas Gupta said, “Lataji’s mother was the second wife of Dinanath Mageshkarji. If the show were based on their lives then we would have also shown our protagonists Kalyani and Ketki’s mother as the second wife. Similarly, we have only two sisters while the Mangeshkars are four sisters.”

Mohan Deep, who has written multiple books on Bollywood personalities, asserts that the Lata-Asha rivalry is not a figment of one’s imagination. “Lata started singing at the age of 12 or 13 and by the time she became an adult, rose to unparalleled fame. The two sisters had very different personalities too. Lata was more reserved, while Asha was an extrovert. It helped her make more friends in the industry.”

The professional differences started trickling in when Asha started pursuing a career in playback. “Lata was not comfortable singing all kinds of songs or saying certain phrases. Asha didn’t have those inhibitions. Because of this, O.P. Nayyar took to Asha and started recording with her. Nayyar even started recording songs with anyone but Lata. He is one of the few composers who could deliver hits even without Lata,” adds Mohan.

Theories of Lata trying to suppress her younger sister’s career are not unheard of either. Film critic Rauf Ahmed, however, doesn’t endorse them. “It’s embarrassing to say that Lataji blocked the entry of new female playback singers. Why would she do that when music composers were queuing up to get her to sing their songs? The mainstream industry works on one criterion: saleability. Whoever scores at box office is king.

“Besides, if Lataji was controlling the music scene in Bollywood, why couldn’t she lead her brother Hridayanath Mangeshkar to the top of the heap? On the other hand, Ashaji did find her niche and has been dominating the scene for decades.”