I love singing devotional songs now: Lata Mangeshkar

Lata Mangeshkar, who has recently sung the Hanuman Chalisa for a special album, feels that it is high time we invoked the blessings of Lord Hanuman to save society from the various evils plaguing it. In fact, Lata feels that it is due to the decadence and corruption that has set into society which is causing epidemics like swine flu.

“Swine flu had to come. Nothing is going right around us. There is so much fear and hatred in the world — people are planting bombs to take lives, there are communal riots and even a basic necessity like food is impure today. In such an environment, things like swine flu will hit us hard. Hanumanji is referred to as the Sankatmochan (destroyer of all perils), he can help us tide over this situation. We should all invoke him and pray for his blessings like I have done,” Lata told After Hrs in an exclusive interview.

But apparently Lata herself was a little apprehensive about singing the Hanuman Chalisa. “I was afraid because I had heard that the Hanuman Chalisa and the Bhagwad Gita were only to be sung by men. I didn’t want any trouble, but then I found out that the popular notion was not correct. So I went ahead with it,” says the Bharat Ratna awardee.

It has been a while since Lata has sung in a Hindi movie. Salaam-e-Ishq (2007) was the last film the Indian nightingale lent her voice to. And while Madhur Bhandarkar roped her in for Jail and now Bhushan Kumar has convinced her to sing Hanuman Chalisa, there is speculation that she’s as good as retired now.

“I’m certainly not retiring. I have done private albums in these two years. The surgery on both my knees had slowed me down but now I’m fine. I love singing devotional songs now. I don’t really like the songs that are being made by Bollywood today. I must say that we have great singers with lovely voices but the songs are not as good as they used to be in our times. They don’t excite me anymore,” she signs off.