till not all that bright. Initially, there's just a smattering of her, for she has to work twice as hard, since she has to rebuild from scratch, and there is one more mouth to feed. Although she was always there to make our home, put us through school and spoil us with luxuries, I never had enough of her. How a single parent manages to merge the roles of provider and home-maker is still beyond my comprehension. Much later, I asked her, "Aai, you had the security of the roof of your own mother, your sisters -- what was the big rush to set up your own house? Instead, couldn't you have given us more time?" Without missing a beat, she replied, "Never again did I want to be at the mercy of anyone else. It would have been equally harmful for you three. You had to grow up in your own home, and with the freedom I alone could sanction". We did, we did.
After setting up independently, Aai rebelled a textbook kind of rebellion. Much more than today, the film industry -- like our society at large -- was saturated with prejudice, hypocrisy and factionism -- and Asha Bhosle had tacitly been branded a fallen woman. It certainly didn't help when the closest comparable rival was her own sister, the ethereal Miss Lata Mangeshkar. Soon, choice assignments were withdrawn, and a conspiracy of silence manifested itself into Aai's musical career... But, if anyone so much as suggested something to alleviate the situation, you could bank on Asha Bhosle to do the opposite. After more than a decade of suppression, and of keeping the shame of her squalid married life from her family and colleagues, she simply revelled in her absolute freedom. What still fascinates me is the total honesty and fearlessness with which she lived, as if to say, "My life is an open book, make of it what you ..... |
