Lata Mangeshkar is celebrated as one of the finest female playback singers in Bollywood who started her career in 1942 and ever since then, the melody queen has been associated with timeless classics and also featured in Guinness Book of World Records. With a career spanning over six decades, the singer has the rate feat of crooning in thousands of Bollywood movies in addition to many Indian regional languages.
Born to a Marathi family of theatre actor and singer Pandit Deenanath Mangeshkar in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, Lata Mangeshkar is the eldest sister of an equally accomplished Bollywood singer Asha Bhosle and her other siblings Hridayanath Mangeshkar, Usha Mangeshkar and Meena Mangeshkar.
A childhood prodigy, Lata took early musical lessons from her father. However, post the demise of her father, a young Lata (13 years of age) was initiated into singing career. Lata initially started sang for Marathi films and in 1945, she to Mumbai along with Master Vinayak’s troupe. Once in Mumbai, Lata took Hindustani classical music training from Ustad Amanat Ali Khan Bhendibazaarwale and later on from Amanat Khan Devaswale. 1950s saw the meteoric rise of the melody queen as she sang with prominent music directors of time and soon became the numero uno of Bollywood. However, post 1980s, Lata became quite selective and reduced her playback singing. Lata has been bestowed with Padma Bhushan (1969), Padma Vibhushan (1999), Dada Saheb Phalke Award (1989), Bharat Ratna (2001) apart from three National Awards and couple of Bollywood awards.