When Lata wanted to marry Saigal

(New Delhi, May 31, 2009) Legendary singer KL Saigal was so much revered by the Mangeshkar family that only his songs were allowed to be sung at their home and a young Lata even dreamt of marrying him.

“Since I was a child, I had always wanted to meet Saigal sahib. When I was very young I would say: When I grow up, I’ll marry Saigal. Jokingly my father would reply: By that time he will be an old man. I would say: Never mind I’ll still marry him,” Lata says in the book Lata Mangeshkar: In Her Own Voice written by Nasreen Munni Kabir and published by Niyogi Books.

The book has a series of fascinating conversations between Lata and London-based documentary author-filmmaker Kabir and reveals the person behind the voice that has provided the soundtrack for the lives of billions.

But Lata never met Saigal.

“I do regret that I never managed to meet Saigal sahib. Thanks to his brother Mahendra Saigal, I met Saigal sahib’s wife Asha Raniji and his children. His son gave me a ring that belonged to Saigal sahib,” the singer, who has sung over 50,000 songs in her career spanning over six decades, recalls.

According to her, film music wasn’t hugely appreciated at home.

“Baba always liked Saigal sahib and so did I. At home I sang his songs, especially ‘Ek bangla bane nyara’ from the film ‘President’. I was allowed to sing Saigal sahib’s songs at home but no other film songs. Nor did I much care for them,” Lata says.

“The family preferred classical music. And my father was a very conservative man. He was strict about the way we dressed, we could never wear powder or make-up. Baba didn’t like us going out late at night to watch plays, not even his own productions. He was strict in that way. But that was the norm; this was some 70 years ago.

Baba didn’t like films. We weren’t allowed to go to the movies ? except for films made by Marathi filmmaker Bhalji Pendharkar and Calcutta’s New Theatres. Baba believed their productions had good music and sensible stories,” she says.

Since 1949, when Lata was first noticed for her singing talent in the song Aayega aanewala from Mahal, her magical voice has taken a firm hold of the Indian imagination.

Lata, conferred the Bharat Ratna in 2001, has recorded more songs than anyone else in the world and yet, despite her extraordinary fame, she is a deeply private person who has mostly shied away from glitz and glamour, the author says.

(Name: Lata Mangeshkar …in her own voice; Author: Nasreen Munni Kabir; Publishers: Niyogi Books, Price: Rs 1,500; Pages: 268)

When ban of alcohol due to polls surprised Jeffrey Archer

(New Delhi, May 17, 2009) Celebrated British writer Jeffrey Archer, currently on a visit to India to promote his novel Paths of Glory, was quite astonished to learn that dry days are observed in the country during elections.

“I arrived (in India) the day before the election in Chennai (May 13)… I didn’t discover until I arrived to make my speech at a dinner in the evening that this is a dry day,” Archer wrote on his blog.

“Two days before the election, you are not allowed to drink alcohol – pubs close, liquor stores close, a bottle of wine was removed from my room and I noticed that even the miniatures had disappeared from the minibar. So I sat down to dinner with 300 people who were drinking orange juice and Coca Cola.

“I’m flattered they bothered to turn up. I can’t imagine how the English would take to that as an idea,” he wrote.

Paths of Glory is the story of a man who loved two women, and one of them killed him. It is a real-life mountaineering mystery and revokes the debate about George Mallory being possibly the first man to have reached Mt Everest.

In Paths of Glory, which is the former Tory MP’s 15th novel, Mallory makes three visits to India on his way to the Himalayas.

The author of bestsellers such as Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less, Kane and Abel, As the Crow Flies and First Among Equals is in the country as part of the ‘Landmark Jeffrey Archer Tour of India’.

The tour, spanning five cities – Chennai, Mumbai, New Delhi, Pune and Bangalore – commenced on May 11 and will end on May 19.

Last year he came to India to promote his book A Prisoner of Birth.

About the Indian elections he writes: “It’s already accepted that with 30 parties involved, some horse-trading will inevitably take place over the weekend to decide who will be Prime Minister and who will hold the different portfolios.

“I get the general feeling that in these troubled times, the Indians would like to retain the status quo, and they point out to this Englishman again and again that their banks are all stable and none of them have financial debts – although they are suffering from the knock-on effect of the recession in the US and Britain.”

On Friday, Archer was in Gurgaon where he addressed his fans and signed copies of his novels.

As he spoke, his fans could not but admire his humour and foresightedness.

He joked that he wanted to be the country’s transport minister. And by doing so, he’ll “make all cycles, rickshaws and two-wheelers run in one lane one, lorries in another lane two and cars in the third lane”.

He also promised that he won’t let people “just cross the road”.

Archer, a die-hard cricket fan, however, did not think highly of T20 cricket and termed it “rubbish”.