Asha Bhosle is 90 but not her music

Asha @ 90: Celebrating the queen of versatility

India’s singing superstar Asha Bhosle is 90. Could this be a statement of her age? With a voice that belies it, and a spirit so young, Asha Bhosle 90 is more a statement of the age of all her listeners. We have been listening to her for three decades or over six decades is an indication of how years have added to our lives, and yet, we continue to listen to her.

She sang for a new film, Hari-Om; recently President Draupadi Murmu requested her to sing at a public event. Asha was also at a dance reality show telling all those present how she loved dancing, and that she was a fan of the American dancer Fred Astaire and also did a few Hrithik Roshan steps. She will next be seen on the stage on September 8 (the day she turns 90) in Dubai.

It is hard to capture Asha’s brilliance in a single word. In a British Film Institute documentary Asha (1986, Neville Bolt), even the extremely articulate actor Smita Patil struggles to define her music. She likens her to a goddess who assumes several forms. Asha smoothly floats through several genres of music — from cabaret and romantic to semi-classical and folk.

In a moving essay, Saturday’s Child, Asha’s daughter Varsha finds that one word to describe her mother. “If I could sum up my mother in one word, it would have to be zidd. The more formidable the task, the harder she applies herself to it.”

Varsha recalls how she collaborated with the pop-group, The West India Company, which involved interacting with British musicians and technicians. Asha, who had never been to school and couldn’t stitch together a single line in English, woke up early every morning and learnt Spoken English from cassettes. Her song ‘Ave Maria’ as part of this project with the English singer Boy George, topped the charts, she also addressed the British Press with panache. Asha believes in relentless riyaz and hence, most casually, as if it were a norm, she had once said in an interview: “Eight to ten hours are a must.”

Asha and her sisters were groomed solidly in classical music by their legendary father Pt. Dinanath Mangeshkar. Closely associated with the Marathi company theatre, his four daughters listened to some of the greatest masters. Waking up at four in the morning, singing ‘omkar’ with the tanpura for 30 minutes, practicing simple to complex sargams in raag Bilaval, meditating in mandra saptak before moving on to other intense forms of riyaz after sunrise — Asha has done it all.

Having married at the age of 16, she had to do household chores and being a struggling singer, she spent long hours in the studio, yet did not give up on her riyaz. It is easy to put Asha’s versatile musical prowess as talent, but by her own admission, it is grueling work.