Asha Bhosle’s birthday today

Somewhere between your morning cup of tea and your drive to the office, a soothing voice on the radio made your life melodious and lively, so much so that subconsciously that voice is part of your life now.

We need to thank Asha Bhosle, or Asha tai as we think of her, as the person who brought melody in our life day after day, for as long as we can remember.

Born on September 8, the singer has treated us with film music, pop, ghazals, bhajans, traditional Indian classical music, folk songs, qawwalis, and Rabindra Sangeets. Times have changed and the definition of Bollywood film music has transformed too, which cannot do without a ‘munni’ or ‘sheela’.

‘A couple of years back when songs with lyrics such as ‘Munni’ and ‘Halkat’ were created, I felt that the standard of music had really dropped. These days, however, there are nice and slow songs being made. But even these songs aren’t like the ones we sang in the earlier times. The songs that we sang back in those days were soulful and had a quality to them. Today, songs aren’t that beautiful,’ Asha Bhosle had told media earlier.

One wouldn’t completely disagree with her. We live in a time when Yo Yo Honey Singh’s idea of objectifying women in songs is happily accepted and played at weddings, parties and several other ceremonies. However, thanks to the internet, one can always take a break from all this and live a little in the past.

In an interview with Hindustan Times long back, Asha had revealed her favourite numbers she has sung. It is just that her favourites are ours too. These are the songs all things nice are made of - late night car rides, an evening out with friends and when you are home alone. And on loop on Asha Bhosle’s birthday.