BHUBANESWAR: A musical beginning embraced the second session of the concluding day of Odisha Literary Festival-2024, on Sunday, with Kishore Kumar and Lata Mangeshkar’s rendition ‘Iss mod se jaate hain’ playing in the background even as author Yatindra Mishra geared up to take the audience through a melodious journey.
In a session on ‘Writing on Music: From Begum Akhtar to Gulzar’, Yatindra gave the gathering a glimpse into the world of art and why he chose writing as a profession. The poet, who belongs to the seventh generation of the Ayodhya Raj Parivar, has worked with and known closely some of the doyennes of the music industry including Lata Mangeshkar, Girija Devi, Ustad Bismillah Khan, to name a few.
Speaking to senior journalist Kaveree Bamzai, he shared that his family was closely associated with Lataji. “Growing up, I did not realise whether her songs were Awadh’s colloquial bhajans or movie songs sung by her. As I reached adulthood, my interest in working with Lataji grew,” he added.
The cinema scholar further shared that over the years, his bond with Lataji came to develop into the one people share with their grandparents. “She used to open up about some facts on her life which she probably hadn’t shared with anyone. However, she had asked me not to write about them. So when I write biographies about these great personalities, I keep it in mind not to personalise my writings. I enter into their personal periphery only as much as I’m allowed or the readers should know,” the ‘Lata: Sur-Gatha’ author said.
Yatindra said in the initial days of his writing career, his guru had cautioned him that writing was no easy feat. “He used to say there is no backdoor entry into literature and writing. I knew I had to work hard,” he said.
About his experience in working with Gulzar, the cinema scholar said the latter is a wonderful human being. “I have known him for the last 26 years. His biography took me 20 years to complete and was released last year,” he said.