Trending

Coronavirus: Lata Mangeshkar, India’s beloved singer, dead at 92

By Bob D'Angelo, Cox Media Group National Content Desk

Bollywood singer dies: Lata Mangeshkar sang more than 25,000 songs that were mimed by Indian singers in movies. (Prodip Guha/Getty Images)

By Bob D'Angelo, Cox Media Group National Content Desk

Lata Mangeshkar, a beloved singer from India whose voice was an integral part of Bollywood movies for decades, died Sunday. She was 92.

>> Read more trending news

Mangeshkar died at Breach Candy Hospital in Mumbai, India, The New York Times reported.

The singer died of complications from COVID-19 after weeks of hospitalization, Pratit Samdani, a doctor at the hospital, told Indian news outlets. Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Twitter that he was “anguished beyond words.”

Known as the “nightingale of India,” Mangeshkar was a playback singer -- providing music to be mimed by actors -- for scores of Indian movies, CNN reported. Mangeshkar sang more than 25,000 songs in more than 1,300 movies, mostly in Hindi but in several other Indian languages, including Marathi, Bengali, Tamil, Kannada and Gujarati, according to the Times.

She had a soft voice but could sing in four octaves, the newspaper reported.

“The day I started working as a playback singer, I prayed to God: ‘No more acting in films,’” Mangeshkar said. “He listened to me and I got a fairly good position in playback singing.”

Mangeshkar recorded some of Bollywood’s biggest hits, including “Pyaar Kiya To Darna Kya” (Why Fear to Be in Love) from the 1960 film “Mughal-e-Azam,” according to the Times.

Mangeshkar was born on Sept. 28, 1929, in Indore, in what is now the state of Madhya Pradesh, according to the newspaper.

She began training with her father in classical Indian music when she was 5 years old, CNN reported. Mangeshkar started her career by singing at his musical plays, performing in public for the first time when she was 9 and recording her first song four years later, the news outlet reported.

She received the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest honor, in 2001, the Times reported.

The Indian government ordered two days of national mourning, CNN reported. The national flag will be flown at half-mast through Monday, India’s Ministry of Home Affairs said in a statement Sunday.

“There will be no official entertainment,” the ministry said.

©2022 Cox Media Group

0

Most Read