When Dilip Kumar Allegedly Offended Lata Mangeshkar By Saying ‘Urdu Of Marathis Is Like Dal And Rice’ ( Photo Credit – Wikimedia; Facebook )
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It is known that Bollywood’s late veterans Dilip Kumar and Lata Mangeshkar shared a warm bond with each other. But did you know what the two shared before becoming the rakhi brother and sister? Well, many didn’t until now! In today’s throwback story we bring you an interesting story of the two who have given us numerous hits.
The veteran singer passed away on February 6, 2022, while the legendary singer left for his heavenly abode on July 7, 2021.
Coming back to our story, Dilip Kumar had once left Lata Mangeshkar miffed when he had made a sly remark about the singer during their first meeting. It so happened when composer Anil Biswas made the duo meet on a local train. Biswas had then informed the actor that they have chosen Lataji to sing Laagi Naahin Chhute, for his film, Musafir. Hearing this, Kumar gave a rather bitter reply and had said, “Urdu of Marathis is like dal and rice”
Well, Dilip Kumar’s sly remark got Lata Mangeshkar offended for all the obvious reasons so much so that she stopped speaking to him for 13 years. However, after 13 years, it was author Khushwant Singh who brought the duo together. He drove the singer to Kumar’s house and made her tie the rakhi on Kumar’s wrist. Soon after which she told everyone at the dining table, “You know, Yusufsaab, I’d always heard you loathed me for being one up on you while recording the Laagi Naahin Chhute Rama duet with you in (Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s) Musafir. But I only sang the way I can’t help singing any number.”
And Dilip Saab has said in her sweet reply, “It’s precisely because you can’t help singing the way you do that my family and I adore you! How possibly could I loathe a voice so heavenly!”
The late Nightingale Of India once recalled a story in Kumar’s 2014 autobiography The Substance and the Shadow and opened up about how she got her Urdu diction right. As quoted by Indian Express, Lata Mangeshkar had said, “The remark that Yousuf Bhai made when he found out that I am a Maharashtrian is something that I cherish because it made me seek the perfection I then lacked in my Hindi and Urdu diction. He said very truthfully that singers who were not conversant with the Urdu language invariably tripped in the pronunciation of words derived from the language and that jarred and spoiled the listening pleasure for those who enjoyed the lyric as much as the melody.”
