Entertainment Desk, New Delhi. Lata Mangeshkar is called the vocal nightingale. He has blessed cinema with thousands of cult classic songs, delighting fans for decades. Director-producers were queuing up to cast Lata Mangeshkar.
Lata Mangeshkar also devoted herself to singing. He sang songs without hesitation and earned fame. But you probably don’t know that he refused to sing one of his iconic songs. 48 years ago, he wanted to sing a song dedicated to devotion to Shiva, but had previously refused.
The story of Lata Mangeshkar’s super hit
This song is the title track of Raj Kapoor’s film Satyam Shivam Sundaram. Lata Mangeshkar immortalized this song with her voice, shot on Zeenat Aman. Even after almost five decades, this song remains on people’s lips. Raj Kapoor had to convince Lata Mangeshkar to sing this song. She was so angry with him that she wouldn’t even let him come to the studio.
Discord between Lata and Raj due to brother’s affair
The reason for this resentment was explained by his daughter Ritu Nanda in a book written about Raj Kapoor, Raj Kapoor: The One and Only Showman. According to ETimes, Ritu Nanda revealed in the book that Raj Kapoor was initially going to cast Lata Mangeshkar’s brother Hridaynath Mangeshkar as the music director in Satyam Shivam Sundaram. It was he who asked the singer to convince Hridaynath.
refused to sing the song
Hridaynath agreed at Raj Kapoor’s request. But when Lata Mangeshkar went to the US for work and returned, it was revealed that Raj Kapoor had removed Hridaynath and included Laxmikant-Pyarelal in the film. Lata became very angry at this. Raj Kapoor made this decision without asking or informing him. In anger, the singer refused to perform his song.
I asked Raj Kapoor for royalties for the songs.
Lata sang many songs for Raj Kapoor but never received any royalties. But when Bhai was replaced, he started demanding royalties from Raj Kapoor for songs. The situation escalated and Lata was not ready to accept it. Then came Pandit Narendra Sharma, whom Lata considered her father. He felt that no other singer could do justice to the songs of Satyam Shivam Sundaram, so he convinced Lata to lend his voice to the songs.
Lata sang a hit under two conditions
Finally, at the insistence of Pandit Narendra Sharma, Lata Mangeshkar agreed to sing, but also fulfilled the conditions. Her condition was that she would not talk to anyone in the studio. Laxmikant-Pyarelal was also ordered not to allow Raj Kapoor to come into the studio during recording.