Lata Mangeshkar was a religion of her own; personal relationships notwithstanding, her work cut across politics

I had decided to not write an obituary on Lata Mangeshkar , the Goddess Of All Melodious Things. Obituaries are written for the dead. The Goddess cannot die.

She will live through thousands of her songs for as long as civilisation exists; which may not be very long, what with many kinds of viruses and other toxic elements polluting and poisoning our planet.

As long as even one of her songs is heard by mankind, we shall survive, mind you not the thousands that she has rendered to infinite durability, but just one, only one. Pick any one… ‘Raina Beeti Jaye,’ ‘Aaj Socha Toh Aansoon  Bhar Aaye,’ ‘Ae Dilruba,’ ‘Kitni Dard Bhari Yeh Raat Hai,’ ‘Abke Na Sawan Barse,’ ‘Saawan Ke Jhoole Pade’…  Every one of these songs is worth infinitely more than the entire body of songs sung by every other singer in the universe.

Those who talk about her monopoly now, when she is gone, should listen to the above songs. I can send you a list of 200 songs of hers, each one a consummate self-contained masterpiece on par with Pablo Picasso’s Mona Lisa  or the Kohinoor. I have heard “Main hoon teri prem deewani, mere saiyan mera raja diljani," an obscure RD Burman composition from a potboiler, titled Azaad, which did not deserve the gem of a song, at least 500 times since it was first released in 1978: I still do not know how she has sung it, the pauses she takes between the lines, the way she carries the notes from mid-wave to the highest octave within two lines: no singer in the world, not Tansen, not Bhimsen Joshi, not Pavarotti can do this. She is beyond any human explanation of excellence.

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I am embarrassed to praise her when she is gone. I had vowed I would not. After a lifetime of deep unconditional, uninterrupted veneration I had decided to not join the chorus of panegyrics after her passing away. But then I saw  some deeply cynical writings where she was accused of going saffron after singing for Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. I heard discordant voices questioning her political allegiance.

Yes, she was very fond of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. She has, on many occasions, spoken to me about him warmly. I remember on her birthday in 2019, when I called her in the morning to wish her, she gently asked me to call later. “Abhi Modi_ji ka_ phone aane wala hai.” I could not compete with that.

There was mutual fondness between the two that transcended politics.

Lataji’s ‘Allah Tero Naam Ishwar Tero Naam’ was no empty rhetoric. If she is being mourned in Pakistan as much as in India, then it is only because she  sang for mankind, not for passports.

The Goddess’s songs owed allegiance to neither saffron nor green. They were a religion of their own, a colour so vibrant, deep, tapestried, and rich, they have no human definition.

Keep her out of all the political prattle. She was neither right nor left. She just was. She is. She will be.

Since this morning, I saw “tributes” where  the Goddess was slyly accused of “sabotaging” the careers of singers like Vani Jairam, Hemlata, Preeti Sagar, and Suman Kalyanpur. With due respect to these singers, no singer in this world was competition for Lataji. Because she was not of this world.

We Lata bhakts believe she was Saraswati Mata reincarnated. You have a problem with that? The liberals find that laughable? Why do you think she left us on the day of visarjan after Saraswati Puja? The day when Saraswati  Mata was immersed is the day Lataji departed.

I have not even begun to process her departure from this godforsaken world. I cannot believe I will never be able to speak to her. Do I care for a world which has just been robbed of the receptacle all that is beautiful and desirable?

Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha.