After a decades-long, legendary career in playback singing, how well can one remember their first public performance? Do singers hold them special in a corner of their heart, or do thousands of hours spent in recording rooms and venues mean the first time gets forgotten over time?
Asha Bhosle, who passed away on Sunday, aged 92, vividly remembered her first encounter with the microphone. In an interview, the veteran singer-actress recollected that she recorded her first song at the age of just 10. The singer, who holds a unique record for performing more than 12,000 songs in around 20 languages, revealed that she trembled when the moment arrived.
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For the unversed, her first song was in 1943 at the age of 10 for the Marathi film Majha Bal. She continued to sing until the late 2010s and beyond, making her one of the longest-performing singers in global music history.
Speaking once with ABP Bharat, Asha Bhosle said: "I was 10 years old, and it was 1943. That was my very first song, where I had to stand in front of a microphone and sing. I was trembling a lot at that time. I didn’t even know what a microphone was."
Elaborating on the worries and unfamiliarity of a newcomer, the legend reportedly further said: "None of this was familiar to me — what a mic is or how to sing into it. My father used to record his songs. When I sang my first song, I felt that I could sing too. Only my elder sister used to sing, but I realised that I could do it as well.”
She further said: “I felt that all of us siblings could sing. That’s where my journey began, and I’ve been standing here ever since. In the film industry, the work is such that if you reach the studio at 10 in the morning, you are let go only by 10 or 11 at night — sometimes even at 8 in the morning.”
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Asha Bhosle lent her voice to songs in 20 different languages. Apart from Hindi and Marathi, she also sang in Punjabi, Tamil, English, Assamese, Urdu, Telugu, Bengali, Gujarati, Russian, Czech, Nepali, and Malayalam.
Asha Bhosle passes away
Born on 8 September 1933 in Sangli of Maharashtra, she was initiated into music by her father, Deenanath Mangeshkar, just as her sisters were. Music was perhaps her destiny. Of the four sisters, Lata, Usha, and Asha were playback singers, while Meena is a music composer, as is their brother Hridaynath Mangeshkar.
The highly-decorated Asha, who was also a successful entrepreneur and ran the popular restaurant 'Asha' in Dubai and the UK, won multiple awards, including the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, the Padma Vibhushan, National Awards, and other music honours.
One of the most celebrated playback singers, she enjoyed a career spanning over eight decades with thousands of recorded songs in more than 20 Indian languages. From her debut in 1943 to becoming a Guinness World Record holder, her journey was marked by versatility across genres like ghazals, pop, and classical music.