Facts about India's 'melody queen' Lata Mangeshkar

Mangeshkar was named Hema at the time of her birth

Lata Mangeshkar. Credit: AFP Photo

• Lata Mangeshkar was born on 28 September, 1929 in Indore

• She was born to Master Dinananth Mangeshkar who was a well-known Marathi actor and theatre personality, and Shevanti

• She was named Hema at the time of her birth but later her name was changed to Lata after the name of a character Latika in a play of her father named Bhaaw Bandhan

• Lata Mangeshkar has four siblings - three sisters Meena Khadikar (5 September, 1931), Asha Bhosale (8 September, 1933), Usha Mangeshkar (11 December, 1935) and brother Hridaynath Mangeshkar (born 26 October, 1937)

• At the age of five, she started to work as an actress in her father's musical plays or Sangeet Natak

• On her first day of school she left school because they would not allow her to bring her sister Asha with her, as she would often bring her younger sister with her

• She was trained in the Bhendi Bazaar gharana of Mumbai

• Lata recorded her first song in the year 1942 for the Marathi film Kiti Hasaal but it never got released as it was dropped from the final cut

• She recorded her first Hindi song, ‘Mata Ek Sapoot Ki Duniya Badal De Tu‘ for the Marathi feature Gajaabhaau, which was released in 1943

• Legendary producer Sashadhar Mukherjee dismissed her voice as "too thin"

• From 1942-2015, she has lent her voice for great songs for 73 years - and sung nearly 28,000 to 30,000 songs in Hindi and multiple Indian languages

• Lata’s rendition of Kavi Pradeep’s Ae Mere Watan Ke Logon moved then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to tears on January 27, 1963, at Ramlila Maidan, New Delhi (The song was dedicated to the soldiers who lost their lives in the 1962 India-China war)

• Mangeshkar was the first-ever Indian singer to have performed at the Royal Albert Hall in London way back in 1974
• Lata Mangeshkar was nominated to the Rajya Sabha from 1999-2005