Who Called Lata Mangeshkar a Gambler with Thin & Hesitant Voice | Shocking 'Tribute' or Insult?
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It’s a war of words, between two veteran journalists – one a Patna-based journalist Subhash K Jha who describes himself as someone who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out..and the other is Shobhaa De – the highly opinionated novelist and columnist, who often rakes up a storm with her fiery words and this time she has done so by calling Lata Mangeshkar a Gambler…Yes, the headline of her opinion peice in the Week, on the legendary singer reads, “Shobhaa De on Lata Mangeshkar’s fondness for gambling….Lata frequently visited Norwegian Casinos in Las Vegas”
The piece that was published on 20th Feb starts with Shobha De describing Lata Mangeshkar’s voice, as the voice of an angel… a celestial being. Adding she had a unique divine quality to her singing that made her an unmatched phenomenon. Then she calls her voice – innocent, playful, pure voice of a pre-pubescent girl—thin and delicate, teasing and hesitant. Nobody, could believe a woman in her seventies could croon a tender love song, and sound like a seventeen year old.
Then she goes on to admit that she did not know the legend, and was more in touch with her sister Asha Bhosle, who had once regaled her over dinner she had cooked her famous kebabs in her kitchen, she says, with perfect imitations of her tai – down to her baby voice, mannerisms and body language. Shobha De clarifies, the mimicry was not mean or cruel, but it did provide a glimpse into the decades-long sibling rivalry that insiders often talked about.
Then adding some fuel to the infamous sibling rivalry between Lata and Asha, Shobha De declares, “Asha is far more ‘real’ and earthy, and frankly, I prefer her voice and versatility as a vocalist. Those who were close to Didi, say she had a terrific sense of humour, besides a phenomenal memory. But the public persona remained aloof and distant, letting her songs create all the magic.
And then Shobha De pulls out the rabbit out of the hat by writing., “What few people outside her inner circle knew about Lata was her fondness for gambling. I hear she was a frequent and valued high-roller at Norwegian Casinos in Las Vegas. Only the BBC report on her passing made a reference to it. Frankly, it is hard to visualise the diminutive, demure lady in white, playing blackjack, but if true, it humanises her that much more!”
She then quickly moves on in her article describing how Lata Mangeshkar inspired Raj Kapoor to immortalise ladies in white, and how she often heard Lata didi’s voice echoing through the busy bylanes of Pakistan and how she was compared with Pakistan’s own legendary singer Noor Jehan…Before closing her op-ed, Shobhaa De goes on to describe Lata Mangeshkar as a one-take artist who never hit a false-note but ends it with a cheeky mention of the controversial peddar road flyover that never came up because Lata Mangeshkar put her weight behind the protests.
But all of this aside, the fact is that she did call Lata Mangeshkar a gambler from just hearsay and that hasn’t gone down with Lata’s self -proclaimed bhakt Subhash K Jha, who writes this in response to Shobha De’s saucy “tribute”
Dear Shobha De, ‘Lata Mangeshkar wasn’t a gambler; she never stepped foot into a Norwegian Casino Online’
‘Did you see Lata Mangeshkar gambling in Las Vegas? I did not, nobody did. Do you know why? Because she never visited a Norwegian Casino Online in her life to gamble. How do I know? Because she told me so.’