Lata Mangeshkar - Early Life

Early Life

Lata Mangeshkar was born Gomantak Maratha family, in the princely state of Indore, part of the Central India Agency (now part of Madhya Pradesh). Her father, Pandit Deenanath Mangeshkar who belonged to a Gomantak Maratha Samaj family from Goa, was a classical singer and theater actor. Her mother Shevanti (Shudhamati) who was from Thalner, Maharashtra, was Deenanath's second wife. The family's last name used to be Hardikar; Deenanath changed it to Mangeshkar in order to identify his family with his native town, Mangeshi in Goa. Lata was named "Hema" at her birth. Her parents later renamed her Lata after a female character, Latika, in one of her father's plays, BhaawBandhan. Lata is the eldest child of her parents. Meena, Asha, Usha and Hridayanath are her siblings in sequence.

Mangeshkar took her first lessons from her father. At the age of five, she started to work as an actress in her father's musical plays (Sangeet Natak in Marathi). On the first day in the school, she started teaching songs to other children. When the teacher stopped her, she was so angry that she stopped going to the school. Other sources cite that she left school because they would not allow her to bring Asha with her, as she would often bring her younger sister with her.

Read more about this topic:  Lata Mangeshkar

Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:

    Make-believe is the avenue to much of the young child’s early understanding. He sorts out impressions and tries out ideas that are foundational to his later realistic comprehension. This private world sometimes is a quiet, solitary
    world. More often it is a noisy, busy, crowded place where language grows, and social skills develop, and where perseverance and attention-span expand.
    James L. Hymes, Jr. (20th century)

    I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.... I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)