Tere Sur Aur Mere Geet: A 568-page tome on Lata Mangeshkar

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Tere Sur Aur Mere Geet, a 568-page book on and about Lata Mangeshkar, has been released recently on Book Street Publications. The subtitle, “Lata Mangeshkar in conversation with Anirudh Chawla” says it all about the contents of this magnum opus. It has a foreword by well-known yesteryear big name, Asha Parekh, one of the many top heroines for whom first India’s Nightingale may not have been the first voice historically, but emerged soon enough as the foremost and most-recognized playback artiste.

The author, Anirudh Chawla, a well-known film and music journalist and a radio host with All-India Radio, Radio City and Big FM, has also been a scriptwriter and director and has painstakingly put forward the contents of his long radio interactions with the singer and has admitted that its contents have been often quoted to the best of his memory.

Everything about Lata Mangeshkar, including her early family life, her associations with co-singers, composers, lyricists, stars and filmmakers, and her tastes in music over the decades in which she sang is discussed as conversations in this book. They are interpolated with song requests from Lata herself and interesting and even rare pictures, press clippings and other items from her past, with a playback innings that began (for Hindi cinema alone) in 1947 and went on into the millennium.

The most interesting parts of the book relate to her behind-the-scene stories for many of her timeless compositions and other rare and barely-known facts about her songs and career.

For music connoisseurs and Lata devotees, this is a must-buy.