When Lata Didi Gave her Wages to Pandit Ravi Shankar

Swar Kokila Lata Mangeshkar used to say about Ravi Shankar. ‘Pandit ji was a unique artist, as if he was a magician of music. His sitar playing felt like he was talking to God himself. Lata Didi also believed that Pandit ji was a much greater artist than her, he was not just Bharat Ratna, but was like Vishwa Ratna. She first met Lata Didi in 1948 in Mumbai’s Dadar when Pandit ji’s concert was going on. He spent the entire day in a studio in Dadar.

After a tiring recording session, she was paid Rs 200 and went straight to Pandit Ravi Shankar’s program. There she saw the magic of his fingers dancing on the sitar and forgot all her tiredness. During this program, when there was an interval, she got up from her seat and went to the stage and the Rs 200 she got for recording the song that day, she spent it on the stage.

After that, she started presenting the money she had received as remuneration to Panditji with great respect and honour. Only an artist knows the importance of so much money in those days. However, Panditji’s reaction to Lata Didi’s doing this was that he politely refused to take the money, but when Lata Didi told him that this was her appreciation and respect for his art, he accepted it with a gracious smile.

This is how his acquaintance with Lata Didi began. That day, after that concert, Lata Didi told him that she was a new singer trying to sing songs in the Hindi film industry. In the later years, when she became busy in playback singing, even then, whenever she got a chance, she would definitely go to listen to Pandit Ravi Shankar ji in his programmes.

Pandit Ravi Shankar’s song ‘Saavare Saavare ‘ from ‘Anuradha’ was Lata Didi’s Favourite

Film ‘Anuradha’ and a musical collaboration: This story is from the time when in 1960, Hrishikesh Mukherjee invited Lata Didi to sing a song for his film ‘Anuradha’ and told her that Pandit Ravi Shankar ji would also compose music for the film.

Lata Didi was thrilled to hear this. Especially because the film ‘Anuradha’ was the story of a singer, played by Leela Naidu on screen. Pandit ji composed 3 very beautiful songs based on classical music for that singer. The first was ‘Haaye Re Woh Din Kyon Na Aaye’, the second was, ‘Jaane Kaise Sapno Me Kho Gayi Ankhiyan’ and the third was, ‘Saanware Saanware. Out of these three songs, Lata Didi’s most popular song was ‘Anuradha’.

The favourite song was Saanvre Saanvre. This was also because Pandit ji himself played the sitar in this song. However, when this song was recorded, Pandit ji was on a foreign tour, so he could not play sitar along, his sitar part was added later.

Lata didi recorded this song with Rishi Da and out of thousands of his songs, this is the only song in which Pandit ji himself played sitar. Even during the days of rehearsals of the film songs, Pandit Ravi Shankar himself used to sing and explain all the compositions to Lata didi. This also shows that he was not only a good sitar player and musician but also a great singer.