“If we play his songs one by one, we could hear him for a month and never hear the same song again,” Kajol said on Twitter on Sunday. “Prolific and deep.”
Ms Mangeshkar has also had a career as a live performer, usually appearing on stage in an understated white or cream sari. India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, was reportedly moved to tears by his performance of a patriotic Hindi song, “Aye Mere Watan Ke Logon”, after India’s war with China in 1962.
“She leaves a void in our country that cannot be filled,” Modi said on Twitter on Sunday. Ms Mangeshkar was an early supporter of Mr Modi.
Lata Mangeshkar was born on September 28, 1929 in the city of Indore in the present state of Madhya Pradesh. She was the eldest of five children born to Shuddhamati Mangeshkar and her husband, Pandit Deenanath Mangeshkar, a well-known classical musician active in Marathi language drama. His sisters Meena, Asha and Usha and brother Hridaynath, all of whom survive him, are also musicians.
The family was prosperous at first, living in a large house in the town of Sangli in what is now the state of Maharashtra. Her father was her first music teacher and she performed in a few plays as a child, although her father was hesitant to let his daughters appear on stage. Ms Mangeshkar spent much of her childhood on the road, as the family accompanied her father’s theater company on tour in the region.
In the 2009 book, ‘Lata Mangeshkar… in Her Own Voice’, written by Nasreen Munni Kabir, Ms Mangeshkar said she dropped out of formal education on the first day of school. She had brought her 10-month-old sister, Asha, with her, and the teacher refused to let the baby into the classroom, she said.
