Lata Mangeshkar has been a household name for more than 4 decades now. On her birthday we look at 5 lesser known facts about the nightingale of India.
1. Lata Mangeshkar was named Hema Hardikar at birth, later on her father changed her name to Lata after a character Latika from one of his plays. Mangeshkar was derived from her native place Mangeshi, Goa.
2. Before she became recognized as a playback singer she had been rejected several times on the pretext that her voice was ‘too thin’.
3. Lata went to school for just one day! After which she realized she did not like it and focused entirely on her singing.
4. In 1962 she was poisoned by an unknown person because of which she was bedridden and took 3 months to recover.
5. Back in 1962 during the dreaded Indo-china war upon hearing her sing ‘Ae mere watan ke logon’ the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru teared up with emotion.
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