Golden Era of Bollywood: Tale of Two Melody Queens

With the many ups and downs, the Mangeshkar sisters have been together in their professional and personal lives. There have been many stories about their rivalries. Lata is the eldest of the three sisters who entered the film industry first. She began singing at mere 14 years of age to support her family after her father died. Being the eldest one, she expected the same seriousness from her younger sister Asha.

Asha as she is, the rule breaker, had craved a different path for herself. 16-year-old Asha eloped with a man named Mr. Ganpatrao Bhosle, who was 31 years old then. In one of her interviews Asha accepted that Lata did not approve of her marriage, “At one time, the relationship was very adversarial and there have been periods of non-communication.”
The professional differences started trickling in when Asha started pursuing a career in playback.Asha Bhosle made her Hindi film debut when she sang the song "Saawan Aaya" for Hansraj Behl's Chunariya (1948).Her first solo Hindi film song was for the movie Raat Ki Raani (1949).That time Lata esteblished herself with the other great female playback singers like Geeta Dutt, and Shamshad Begum. Asha used to get the assignments these three singers refused to sing. Her earliest songs were composed by A R Qureshi, Sajjad Hussain, and Ghulam Mohammed, and most of these songs failed to do well.In 1952 Singing in Sangdil (1952), composed by Sajjad Hussain, she got reasonable recognition. Raj Kapoor signed her to sing "Nanhe Munne Bachche" with Mohammed Rafi in Boot Polish (1954), which gained popularity. O. P. Nayyar gave Asha a break in CID (1956).but she first achieved success in B. R. Chopra's Naya Daur (1957), composed by him. Her duets with Rafi like "Maang Ke Saath Tumhara", "Saathi Haath Badhana" and "Uden Jab Jab Zulfein Teri", penned by Sahir Ludhianvi, earned her recognition. It was the first time she sang all the songs for a film's leading actress.

From 1957 to 1962 Sachin Dev Burman and his favorite singer, Lata Mangeshkar, were not on good terms. During this period, S D Burman used Asha as his lead female voice. She and Burman gave many hit songs in movies such as Kaala Pani, Kaala Bazaar, Insaan Jaag Utha, Lajwanti, Sujata and Teen Deviyaan (1965). They recorded many songs together after 1962 as well. Most famous of these songs were Asha's duets with Mohammed Rafi and Kishore Kumar. The song "Ab Ke Baras" in Bimal Roy's Bandini (1963) consolidated her position as a lead singer. The seductive song "Raat Akeli Hai" from Jewel Thief (1967), picturised on Tanuja, became very popular.