I used to badger Lataji with one question every Raksha Bandhan: am I her favourite brother? “Pehle Hriday(nath) phir aap,” she would indulge me with that unforgettable laughter that still brings tears to my eyes.
Lataji was not particularly fond of listening to her own songs, not even those that her fans consider classics. “Especially not those, because I’d find a thousand flaws in them. I’d wonder why they are considered classics in the first place,” Lataji would say. But she loved her Raksha Bandhan songs.
Especially, Rang birangi rakhi lekar aye behna (Anpadh). Lataji said this song about sibling-bonding was easy to render since composer Madan Mohan was her rakhi brother. Every Raksha Bandhan he came to his choti bahen to have her tie that sacred string on his wrist. Madan Mohan composed this song keeping his bonding with Lataji in mind.
Lataji also loved her sibling song Phoolon ka taaron ka sabka kehna hai ek hazaaron mein meri behna hai. “It was a brother singing to his sister, first when they’re children and later when they grow up. I sang for the child who played the young Dev Anand (Master Satyajit). The challenge was to sound like a little boy singing to his beloved sister. Please remember, I was a 40-year woman when I had to express a little brother’s love for his sister.”
Lataji also loved her song Bhaiya mere rakhi ke bandhan ko nibhana (Choti Bahen). The pristine Nanda lip-syncing this Lata Mangeshkar song to her screen brother Balraj Sahni was a vision in filial affection that audiences remember to date. Composed by the hit machine duo Shankar-Jaikishan this is one of the most popular Raksha Bandhan songs of all times. Incidentally, Nanda had a hard time erasing the sisterly image. If in 1959 she played Choti Bahen, ten years later she featured in the title role of Badi Didi.
My most favourite Raksha Bandhan song by Lataji is Chanda re mere bhaiyya se kehna behna yaad kare (Chambal Ki Kasam). It is so immaculate in composition (Khayyam), so wonderfully worded (by the great Sahir Ludhianvi) and so pitch-perfectly rendered by Lata Mangeshkar this is the most flawless creation celebrating that special day set aside for sisters and brothers.
I asked Lataji how she was able to attain such summits of emotional expression in this song and she confessed, “It is a song about a sister being separated from her brother. I thought of what Raksha Bandhan would be like if own brother Hridaynath was not with me to celebrate the occasion. Bass, jazbaat wahin se nikal pade.”
