An Interview with Asha Bhosle (III)
Achyut Joshi
"Meraj-E-Ghazal". As soon as I asked her about that, she said, "haa.N
haa.N....mujhe yaad hai. wo to 'real' Gazale.n hai.n." She also said
that those were some of the hardest ghazals that she had ever sung. She
also said that Ghulam Ali never really gave her a solid rehearsal for
those ghazals, and that she was nervous about the recording turning out
bad! (Anyone who has these ghazals in their music collection will agree
with me when I say they definitely do not sound as though they were sung
without any rehearsals. There are definitely some rough spots that could
possibly have been smoothed out, but these "rough spots" totally add to
the beauty of these ghazals.) She was especially nervous about the ghazal
"Dayaar-E-Dil Ki Raat Mein" because she and Ghulam Ali sing in unison so
much. (Whatever....it still turned out awesome).
I then asked her if she could pick some film music upon which she can look
back and say to herself, "I did a really good job on that" She smiled
and became really pensive for a few seconds, and then said in her Bombay
Hindi, "mai.n ne 'Teesri Manzil' me.n bahut mehanat karii....BAHUT mehanat
karii." She said that although "O Mere Sona Re" does not sound like it
would be very tough to sing, she had trouble during its recording.
I then asked her about 'Kashish' (a tape of Noor Jahan's old ghazals that
she had re-recorded in the 80's). She said that she was hearing the
ghazals one day and she just felt that more people need to know of them,
so she decided to record them. She said the first time she met Noor Jahan
was many many years ago in Kolhapur during the recording of the music for
the film 'Badi Maa'. She said that in the 40's she really did not know
much Hindi at all, so she did not even have the courage to speak to Noor
Jahan. She would just stare and watch her as she rehearsed.
Then, many years later, just after the final recording for 'Kashish', she
gave Noor Jahan (who was in London) a copy to see if the ghazals met her
expectations. Noor Jahan congratulated her wholeheartedly and said
"beTii, jo baate.n hum nahii.n kah paaye, tum ne kah gaii.n." Asha-ji
said: "ye baat sunake mujhe ba.Dii Kushii hu_ii."
Then she told me a little bit about her upcoming recordings. She said
that she was recording some Punjabi album soon.
I asked her about the possibility of compilations like 'Dil Padosi Hai',
'Meraj-E-Ghazal' and 'Kashish' from other singers/MD's of today. She shook
her head and said, "ab wo 'music directors' kahaa.N?"
The final question I asked her was what difference she notices between
music recording nowadays and recording of the 'yester-years'. She
replied: "gaanaa to ek 'machine' ban gayaa hai....gaanaa gaanaa nahii.n
rahaa". I kind of wished she would have given me a better answer to my
last question, but I guess I can't really complain. Overall, it was just
a great interview.
If you have made it this far, I should thank you for reading all this.
Hope you enjoyed these three posts.
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Achyut Joshi