Atul Merchant | merchatul@gmail.com

Lata Mangeshkar, the incarnation of Sharda Maa – the Goddess of Music, left for her heavenly abode on 6 Feb 2022. we arranged a show on 12 June 2015, to reminisce about the treasure of her renditions. Keeping up with its motto of “By the Musicians for the Musicians”, Swar Aalap felicitated two young and promising musicians Chintu Singh (Rabab & Guitar player) and Girish Vishwa (Percussionist) with Swar Aalap’s ‘Young Achievers Award‘.

Enchanting sound of Shehnai

Swar Aalap presented a memorable show 1960 Ki Lata (Lata of the 1960s) on 12th June 2015 at Ravindra Natya Mandir, Mumbai. The program which took off with the enchanting sound of Shehnai kept the audience spellbound for three hours with Lata’s immortal songs. This program included the songs of all the significant music directors of the ’60s. The evening was adorned with Lataji’s most popular songs of that decade. The vivacity of the songs and the presence of great celebrities like Pyarelal Ji, Kersi Lord, Johnny Lever, Kishore Desai, Vijay Indorkar, Homi Mullan, etc. of the film fraternity made this a unique musical extravaganza.

Classical bandishes and the raga-based songs

The founder and Creative Director of Swar Aalap, Dinesh Ghate, conceptualized this show during one of his sojourns with singer Raina Lahiri. He envisaged organizing a show featuring the legendary Lata Mangeshkar‘s songs of the ’60s decade, a theme which was never before conceived. Selecting the songs was a herculean task as the ’60s were blooming with master composers, and Lata Ji was at her peak form. A fair enough song list was finalized after great deliberation and it was decided to incorporate preludes of some songs and interludes of others in the show. Classical bandishes and the raga-based songs were sung in tandem.

Anonstop musical sojourn of ace Composers

The presentation of the show was designed to cover the great music directors of that era in order of seniority. The show therefore began with the songs of Sachin Dev Burman. Eventually, his magnum opus music film Guide had completed its glorious 50 years that year. Then followed a nonstop musical sojourn of ace musicians Vasant Desai, C. Ramchandra, Chitragupt, Roshan, Naushad, Pt Ravishankar, Shankar Jaikishan, Salil Chaudhary, Madan Mohan, Kalyanji- Anandji, Laxmikant Pyarelal, and RD Burman. This coupled with Shehnai played by Raju Dhumal and the mellifluous voices of Raina Lahiri, Soumya Verma and Sarvesh Mishra had the audience glued to their seats.

words of wisdom by Pyarelal Ji 

Pyarelal Ji (Laxmikant Pyarelal duo) showered his words of wisdom with the audience at this incredible musical concert. Almost everyone’s favourite comedian Johnny Lever expressed his fondness for musical concerts and sent people into roars of laughter through his comic performance in style. The highlight of the show was at the end with the instrumental rendition of the patriotic song ‘Ai Mere Vatan ke Logon’ penned by Kavi Pradeep. This song played on the guitar by Chintu and on Shehnai by Raju Dhumal left the audience mesmerized.

Team Swar Aalap

The show was hosted by Vividh Bharti anchor Yunus Khan. The artistes who were instrumental in making the show memorable were Raina Lahiri, Soumya Verma, Sarvesh Mishra, and a musician’s bouquet from Swar Aalap Kiti. Tribute was paid to the popular Sarod player Zarine Daruwala Sharma. This musical evening spread a melodious fragrance and the audience left humming the haunting melodies of the ’60s rendered by the Queen of Melody Lata Mangeshkar.