"Raj Kapoor's trinity of women -- Nargis, Padmini and Vyjanthimala -- is widely known. Less so is his very special relationship with Lata Mangeshkar. He was entranced by her voice, and she by his chikna face and blue eyes as well as his formidable talent and powers of persuasion. She looks girlish and coy in photographs taken during the early days of their collaboration. There is an air of intimacy, of unspoken complicity in a photograph in which Raj Kapoor is grooming Lata. He is standing behind her as she sits. A cigarette dangling from his lips, he is dressing her hair, while she looks like a blushing teenager. Lata Mangeshkar became yet another woman in white; she only wore white saris, but with coloured borders. While Nargis was his screen beloved, Lata Mangeshkar was her voice and the aural incarnation of the poetic soul of Raj Kapoor in his early days."
-- Madhu Jain, writing in The Kapoors: the First Family of Indian Cinema, pp. 144-145.
The great and seemingly timeless play-back singer Lata Mangeshakar's career preceeded Raj Kapoor's films, and it has certainly lived on beyond them. Probably the only singer to come close to rivalling her close to seven decade career is her sister, Asha Bhosle. Lata-ji is purported to have been the inspiration behind Kapoor's Satyam Shivam Sundaram. Originally planned to be called Soorat aur Seerat (Face and Soul), Kapoor planned to have Lata (who had also worked as an actress early on in her career) star in the film. According to Madhu Jain, the film was something they planned together, to explore the theme of internal and external beauty -- a theme, of course, that Raj Kapoor had already touched on in his first film as a director (Aag), and then returned to when he finally made Satyam Shivam Sundaram, starring Zeenat Aman
You'd think it would be easy to narrow down a Lata-ji "best-of" if I were to limit myself to the songs she performed for Raj Kapoor films, but you'd be wrong. Part of the problem, of course, is that I love every single song in every single Raj Kapoor film I've ever watched. This fact alone stuns me. Every. Single. Song. Every Single Film. Kapoor's meticulous craftsmanship extended to his music, from his choice of music directors to the choice of singers, and I've spent hours this morning trolling YouTube and trying to figure out what to pick.
Likely, other Lata songs will surface during Kapoor Khazana, but if I had to choose just one? It would be the exquisite "Ghar Aaya Mera Pardesi" from Awaara.
In it, Raj (Raj Kapoor), torn between his life of thieving working for the evil Jagga (K.N. Singh) and his love for the beautiful Rita (Nargis), the ward of a judge (who is really Raj's father), falls asleep, and finds himself lifted out of the hell he finds himself in up to heaven, a metaphor for what Rita's love is doing for him.
Of course, my bias is showing here, because I *think* that Awaara may just turn out to be my favorite Raj Kapoor film. Certainly the metaphorical dream sequence that makes up "Ghar Aaya Mera Pardesi", with the ethereal Nargis, the vision merging with the voice of Lata Mangeshkar (as Madhu Jain suggests) is one of my favorite picturisations, ever. Ever:
Ghar Aaya Mera Pardesi (Awaraa) by Avaratna
And, of course, the male singer providing the voice for Raj Kapoor is Mukesh, who, although he wasn't the only playback singer Kapoor worked with, was almost synonymous with Raj-sir.
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