When it comes to talking about artistic impact, facts often don’t suffice. But this time, they might. Let’s start with the basics— Asha Bhosle recorded her first song in 1943, and her last recorded song, ‘The Shadowy Light’, came out two months ago.
More than 12,000 songs across multiple languages, a career spanning 83 years — and how do we sum up this legacy in a few hundred words? These are the days when you realise the insurmountable impact some artists have made in our lives. Asha Bhosle, without any exaggeration, is one of those rare artists.
As ‘90s kids, we grew up hearing about Lata Mangeshkar’s legacy, how she could never hit a false note. Our connection with Asha was more personal than with Kishore Kumar and Muhammed Rafi. When we heard her in ‘Rangeela Re’ (Rangeela, 1995) or ‘Le Gayi’ (Dil To Pagal Hai, 1997), we heard a joy for life.
This journey of endurance and relevance began nearly 50 years ago. She recorded her first Hindi film song in 1948, for the film Afsana. However, by the early 50s, Lata Mangeshkar had emerged as the undisputed queen of film music and the voice of the heroine. The composer didn’t like taking too many risks. What did that leave Asha with? The club songs. In other words, the songs of temptation and desire.
Hindi cinema, for the longest time, was obsessed with providing a moral compass to its audience, which reflected in its countless hero-villain stories. This approach also trickled down into music at the time, as club and cabaret songs came to the fore. And while Helen became the poster girl for ‘the seductress,’
Asha Bhosle became its voice: ‘Aaiye Meherbaan,’ ‘O Haseena Julfon Waali,’ ‘Mud Mud Ke Na Dekh’ - the list is endless. As proved with a resounding impact years later, with a ghazal-driven album like Umrao Jaan (1981) and the melancholic Ijaazat (1987), Asha could be the heart of these albums if given a chance.
It took the versatile vocalist almost three decades and many encouraging collaborators to carve out a unique identity of her own and emerge from her elder sister’s shadow. SD Burman and Madan Mohan gave her some iconic, playful numbers that went beyond the virginal heroine-seductress binary.
Later, OP Nayyar tapped into Asha’s versatility, delivering some of her biggest hits like ‘Ude Jab Jab,’ ‘Isharon Isharon Mein,’ and ‘Aaiye Meherbaan.’ However, the union of Asha Bhosle and RD Burman brought about a tectonic shift in Hindi film music. As film music became more funky and youth-centric, Asha’s energy and love for experimentation came out in their full glory under Pancham’s equally pathbreaking soundscape.
With RD Burman, Asha’s free-spiritedness peaked as she imbued countless of his compositions with her vigorous inflections, giving a whole new dynamic to film music. Years later, she had a similar rejuvenating partnership with AR Rahman, who gave her songs ranging from ‘O Bhanwre’ to ‘Radha Kaise Na Jale’.
Asha was also increasingly becoming the voice of a youthful, more self-confident heroine who sang about what she wanted. Be it Madhubala, Zeenat Aman, Parveen Baba or Rekha — their on-screen image was often incomplete without Asha’s spunk. Hers was still the voice of desire, except it was no longer the ‘immoral’ thing to be — at least, not as much. As the face and shape of mainstream film music kept changing, Asha managed to reinvent herself every time. She also had a substantial presence in the ‘90s Indipop scene.
With a poetic touch, after beginning as the voice of the ‘bad girl’ who didn’t belong to everyone, Asha Bhosle now enjoys a legacy in which she belongs to every generation of music lovers. She belongs to all of us and continues to live among us.