The Asha they did not remember!

Raju Korti
Each time a colossus of the music firmament passes on, I find myself recoiling, not so much at the loss, but at the hurried sanctimony that follows, the facile tributes that parade familiarity without intimacy. And in the case of Asha Bhosle, it was almost as if an entire generation chose amnesia over acknowledgement, reducing an eight-decade symphony into a handful of oft-repeated refrains, when for some of us, her voice was not an accessory to memory but its very texture, its breath and pulse. To add insult to injury, songs were casually misattributed to the wrong films, the wrong composers, even the wrong years, all delivered with an air of easy authority, as though accuracy were optional and no one would know enough, or care enough, to question or protest.

I remember how, long before the marketplace discovered her versatility, she had already etched her genius in quieter, deeper grooves, especially with the mercurial O. P. Nayyar, where one could travel from Beimaan balma maan bhi jaa (1956), Chhota sa baalma (1958), Chham chham ghungru bole (1958), Puchho na hame hum unke liye (1960), Raaton ko chori chori (1965) to the intoxicating cluster of Har tukde mere dil ka, Main shayad tumhare, Yehi wo jaga hai and Muhabbat cheez hai kya (1966), a journey that was less about songs and more about an evolving aesthetic where rhythm flirted with rebellion and melody refused domestication, and yet how conveniently this chapter is footnoted, if at all, as though the arc from Aasman to Kismat was a mere prelude rather than the very foundation of her flight.

Then came the understated alchemy with S. D. Burman, where her voice seemed to acquire an inwardness, a reflective cadence, beginning with Chhayi kaari badariya (1953), moving through Humne kisi pe dore (1956), Dhalti jaaye chunariya (1957), Aan milo more piya (1958), Koi aaya dhadkan kehti hai, Kuch din pehle, Chanda re chanda re (1958), Kaali ghata chhaye mora (1959), Nazar laagi Raja, Dil laga ke, Sach hue sapne tere (1960), and culminating in the haunting austerity of Ab ke baras bhej and O panchhi pyaare (1963), where she was no longer merely singing but inhabiting silences between notes.

With Ravi, she became the voice of quiet devotion and emotional transparency, giving us Dil ki kahani rang laayi hai (1960), Raat raat bhar jaag jaag kar (1961), Halki halki sard hawa (1962), Aaj ye meri zindagi (1963), and the immortal Tora man darpan kehlaye (1965), songs that did not clamour for attention but settled into the conscience like an unspoken prayer.

Even with composers often relegated to the margins of popular recall, she found a way to dignify their compositions, whether it was C. Ramchandra with Aa dil se dil mila le and Dil lagaakar hum ye, or N. Dutta, where one encountered a remarkable spread from Aji tum aur hum (1955), Pyar khul ke nain milaye (1955), Kismat hai agar tumhare saath (1956), Chhup chhup ke dil ki dhadkan (1957), Tang aa chuke hai kashmakashe (1958), Dekhi teri duniya (1959), to Naina kyun bhar aaye and Main jab bhi akeli hoti hoon (1961), and Aap ki baate aap ki kasme (1962), each rendered with a seriousness that belied their so-called “secondary” status.

She could just as effortlessly align with the grand orchestral sweep of Shankar–Jaikishan in Chamke bijuriya garje megh (1953), Mud mud ke na dekh (1955), Saawan ban gaye nain (1961), or the lyrical finesse of Salil Chowdhury in Thandi thandi saawan ki (1956) and Bagh me kali khili (1965), and even in the briefest of associations with Babul, Khayyam, or Hemant Kumar, she left behind imprints like Baithe hain rehguzar par (1959), Do boonde saawan ki (1958), Humse hoti mohabbat jo (1965), Yeh mehfil sitaron ki (1956), Meri baat rahi mere man me and Saaqiya aaj mujhe that continue to whisper long after louder songs have faded.

I often feel the tragedy is not that we forgot these songs, but that we forgot how to listen, how to locate artistry beyond the obvious, how to recognise that before the cabarets, the chartbusters and the late rediscoveries, there existed a young, fiercely committed artiste who negotiated her place note by note, phrase by phrase. Perhaps my indignation also stems from a deeply personal space, for in those songs lies a part of my own growing up, my own apprenticeship in feeling, and if I insist on recalling this Asha, it is not to correct anyone, but to rescue something within myself from the encroaching shallowness of collective memory.

So when the next facile tribute rolls out and someone casually hums Chura liya hai tumne as though that alone defines her, I will quietly retreat into my own archive where Kaali ghata chhaye mora still gathers clouds, Tora man darpan kehlaye still reflects a searching soul, and Ab ke baras bhej still aches with distance, and I will remind myself that legends are not diminished by our forgetfulness, only our listening is.

PS: I have purposely chosen this B&W image to accentuate my point.