#280 Asha Bhosle: 10,000 Songs

We pay tribute to Asha Bhosle and trace how her voice became the soundtrack of Indian cinema across eight decades. I reflect on reinvention, the stories we project onto famous women, and why a legacy can outlast the moment a legend is gone. 

• Asha Bhosle’s passing at 92 and why her work matters 
• The scale of her career with 10,000 recorded songs 
• Growing up in the Mangeshkar musical household 
• Finding an identity beyond Lata Mangeshkar’s shadow 
• The producer phone call that triggers a full reinvention 
• Versatility across classical, Western-influenced, folk, qawwali and ghazal styles 
• Playback singing explained and why Bollywood relies on it 
• How film archetypes shape women’s voices and roles 
• The rivalry rumours and what both sisters actually say 
• Early marriage, separation and raising children while working nonstop 
• Creative and romantic partnership with R.D. Burman 
• Grief, endurance and practising celebration as a habit 
• Big questions about being remembered and what we leave behind 

Thank you for listening, you can hear Ravia every Thursday on 97.9 FM or through our live-stream at www.theuniversalradio.com

IG: @theuniversalradio

Transcript

A Musical Family And Early Shadow

The Phone Call That Sparked Change

Building Versatility Through Study

What Playback Singing Really Is

Songs That Defined Multiple Generations

Rumours Of Rivalry With Lata

Early Marriage And Single Motherhood

Love And Work With R.D. Burman

Losses Strength And Practising Joy

Legacy Reflections And What Remains

Listener Shoutouts And Sign Off

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Hey, it's Ravia, and I am so back, baby. It is a crazy week this week, and we heard some really sad news this week. The legendary singer Asha Bosley has passed away at the age of 92. And in respect to her passing, this show will be about her legendary attributions to music. Contributions to music, I should say. The she is a legend, and we are gonna celebrate her life, her legacy, how she shaped the entertainment industry. And I'm your host, Ravia, and I got to honor a voice that became the heartbeat of Indian cinema for eight decades. The story is a little bit long. I did a lot of research on this, um, looking into her life and times. There's a little bit of a supposed alleged rivalry that's never actually been confirmed between Asha Business and her sister. And unfortunately, what it made me think about is how women are always pitted against each other. Even sisters, like maybe sisters have a little bit of that rivalry, but oh my gosh. Anyways, I'm getting ahead of myself because we're gonna talk about her extraordinary career, pay respect to her, and just really try to like I'm right there with you in that process of like, you know, when a legend falls. And I always think about how, you know, how people say like a person dies twice, the first time when they pass away, and the second time is when like they are forgotten. And I think Asha Bosley's like legacy, her voice is has had such a range with over 10,000 songs recorded in her lifetime. I think she'll last a lot longer than many of us, but there's a specific joy in that, I think, in that she is she was seen as like accepting this this passage of life, um, this passage of life as in passing on um in in some of her last reflections on her on her life in one of her last interviews, her extraordinary career, her complex relationships, the joys, the sorrows, the the the story behind this voice is what we're gonna talk about today. So keep listening, and I will continue my gapping about South Asian singers, entertainers, give us a shout at the Universal Radio Network, and let's play Samasha Bosley. Okay, how many songs do you think you've listened to in your lifetime? How many thought songs do you think most singers sing? Okay, I actually don't have the average for what most singers sing, but this number really blew me away that Asha Bosley had sung over 10,000 songs, sung and recorded 10,000 songs across her lifetime in her career that spanned over eight decades. She was a voice of generations. Like she was that artist that brought out the emotions. She added to so much of Bollywood. And to really understand where this like ability, this like consistency to get 10,000 songs recorded and out there, let's understand where Asha Bosle came from. This is Ravia, and I am giving you a tribute to the late Asha Bosley who passed away on April 12th in Mumbai at the age of 92. But she was born. She was born as Asha Mangeshkar. And to understand where she comes from, where she came from, she didn't actually originate from a famous family, like a fame family, but she came from a musical family. So the Mangeshkar family, her where her her, you know, her family name, her where her family came from. Does that name sound familiar? Maybe from Letha Mangeshkar, because that's her sister. Um, her father was Dinant Mangeshkar, was a classical singer and theater artist who performed across India. Music wasn't something that they learned, it was like a part of their lives. They breathed music. Asha had, you know, her older sister Leta. They also have a few other siblings, Usha, and a few others that we'll talk about today. But her sister, Leta Mangeshkar, soon became known as the melody queen of Bollywood. She was gifted, she has this beautiful voice, she has this beautiful voice as well. She was the older sister, and from an early age, Asha grew up a little bit in the shadow of her sister, but in a way that younger sisters often do. You, your sister, you know, gets her hair cut first. Maybe she starts, like, you know, riding a bike first. This was Letha started singing first. So she watched, uh, Asha watched her sister ascend to stardom, hearing audiences marvel at Letha's voice, and she saw her sister become the voice of India's most iconic actresses because at the time, um, there was no like singers' voices were kind of just used as playback singing for when actors were like singing in the songs. Like, you know how there's always like a voice, and you're like, Yeah, that's Sharu Khan's voice. No, that is a playback singer that is hiding behind the mic. Um, but the family included other younger siblings who also pursued music, but Leta and Asha went to really dominate Indian cinema. For decades, they were inseparable and like their story is is like woven through multiple Bollywood films and Bollywood's like culture itself. So Asha inherited this love of familial music. She also got a lot of versatility. I think that was Asha's gift in learning how to be versatile. Some singers, you know, specialize in one style. They're like, I'm gonna stick to this, I'm I know this is good, let's let's keep this going. Asha was known to be a bit of a chameleon when it came to the music space. She was capable of singing classical pieces, western songs, folk melodies, and cavalis. That range is incredible. Well, it reminds me a little bit of Raph Sabur, if I might say myself, that is the person who comes to mind because he's he's he's been doing all these things. Um, but that versatility for Asha didn't just come to be. It was it was like almost the conditions that she was in that that brought upon this versatility. And in the beginning, Asha sang very much like her sister, very much in that path. And that would prove to both being a blessing and a challenge that would change her life forever. I feel like I say this every week. If I had a great voice, I would be singing on this mic and be want to be a pop star. But imagine having that voice, having the talent, having the you know, the presence on the mic, but still being invisible and even having the right connections in the right places, but still not getting any chances. This seemed to be the reality of the early years of Asha Volsley's career. And whether this is like the reality or what it was, you know, later kind of put on as like this is what happened in her life, and retrospectively looked at, this is this is what majority of sources say is what was happening in the early early days of Asha's career. Let's talk about her sister, Leta Mangeshger, because her career really shaped Asha's. So Leta Mangeshger wasn't just successful, she was an icon, a rising star. Directors wanted her voice, producers have like fought for her, audiences loved her, audiences loved that like amazing range that she had. And Asha has had very similar vocal register and singing voice, and she even found herself confused with her famous sister. So the song that we just listened to was a duet by both of them. And I'm sure you can like tell that the even though they're singing a little bit differently, it's sometimes hard to tell who is who. And here's where like that exact kind of conundrum of sounding too similar took Asha's story to a turning point. A moment that was like small, seemingly insignificant. It reshaped us an entire, like the entire trajectory of her career, which is crazy. So, in an interview um, years later, Asha recalls this moment that a music producer phoned her. And back then, so music companies, like I said, didn't carry the names of singers. They carried the names of actors who would lip sync on screen because they were playback singers. And the actor of this film was Asha Break, and the record was titled Asha Pictures. And the producer made a mistake. He had heard the song and he said to Asha, This is a beautiful song, Asha. Uh your voice is great. And he, you know, was praising her, and he was on the phone with her, and he was, you know, talking to Asha about the song. But she was like, No, this is actually not my song, it's my sister's song. She corrected him politely on the phone. So she left that meaning and she said something had shifted inside her. She realized the truth. As long as she sounded like her sister, she would not have space in the industry to have her own career. She would forever be following up her sister's act and doing things like her sister. So Asha made a decision that would define and change her entire legacy. She would no longer, she no longer wanted to sound like her sister, but she wanted to find her own voice and find something entirely new. And this this next part that I'm gonna get into is is really cool. We're gonna figure out what exactly she found out about herself and about marketing a little bit. Like she was marketing herself here, right? Like alongside this, there's a lot of personal stuff happening, so we'll get into that as well. But what Asha is doing here is really figuring out what the market looks like, where can I fit in? Why aren't people hiring me, hiring me, and how can I get those jobs? Because this girl's voice was one that was going to be heard, and boy, did we hear it. What happened next was extraordinary. So Asha Bowesleigh had one phone call where someone thought that her sister's song was sung by her, and she said, Oh no, we sound way too similar. I need to change my singing style. But in changing her singing style, she didn't just sing a style, she reinvente her marketing strategy and like also just herself in a way. So she said, after this incident where this producer person called her, this person called her and was complimenting her on her song, but it was her sister's song. She was like, Oh no, something's gotta change. And she began watching English films and she studied Western music, how Western singers performed. She learned, she was copying the nuances of their technique. She studied Gawali, the devotional Islamic vocal form, and she learned guzzles, which is like a very classical model, it's like a poetry to music kind of vibe. And she explored every musical tradition she could reach, and she was trying to learn all the different modulations needed for each style. She was really versatile, like actually. So Leta Megeshger was known for her purity, you know, her classic, classical elegance. Asha became known for her versatility, her depth, and her willingness to take risks. She could sing a tragic love song with devastating beauty, and we've all heard those. And she could perform a fast-paced cavalry with this like infectious energy, like absolutely stunning. And then she delivers jazzy kind of fun music and also, and also some disco numbers, the like fun, kind of more risque music. That was her. And this this rebellion wasn't really like maybe it was I don't know if it was against her sister, it was her kind of carving out her own space and getting a little bit of that self-discovery, even though like it could be seen as marketing. I think that music is a part of what the artist does, so it it is pretty reflective of what they do. So in in 2008, Bhavitra Sundar, who's was an associate professor of literature, director of cinema media studies at Hamilton College in New York, she wrote in her paper Media Vaz Sono Woman Vocality and Nation in Hindi cinema. So she wrote this in a paper that equally important to the history of playback singing is the mass migration and civil war that accompanied partition. Many talented artists moved to Bombay in search of work, and the city fast became the new Mecca of the film industry. This is what she says. And this was the milieu in which Asha and her late sister Lata Mangeshker made their careers. And some people say that it was because singers like Noor Jahan, very famous singer that I've talked about before, she had she moved to Pakistan during partition. And that kind of left this gap in the industry that let Lethamangeshker, Asha's sister, rise to fame. So that you know, space for Letha was created in this like, you know, almost like vacuum of um of like like talent leaving Mumbai or Bombay, what it was called at the time, and then it like coming back and kind of becoming this like cultural hub. And this like space that Letha found for herself was something that Asha had to create for herself a few just a few years later. So I'm gonna talk a little bit about what playback singing is because I think it's like helpful to see how these two sisters were kind of put put against each other because the characters that they play are a little bit different. So playback singing is like, you know, it it serves to divide and distribute the persona of the women on the screen. This woman was performing publicly, there is transgression, but they're also they need to be popular and lovable. And thus there was this like binary that happened in playback singing, and in you know, the you know, what happens is like they this always makes me think of English class and how they say there's like the Mary and the Madonna, like there's someone that is like pious and there's someone that is scandalous, like that that this brings me back to that. So it seems like a tale as old as time. You tell me what you think about that. But back to what I was saying. So there was this binary that emerges in in Bollywood that is pure and virtuous heroine versus the sensual, bold kind of you know, seductress, something like that, right? Something like that was is the binary that that exists. And this was established just through the styling of mannerisms of the actors, but also the way they sang, like how spicy, how fun, or how clean and pure do they sound. So Letha's Letha Mangeshkar's voice was melodious, clean, and established the innocence of virtue um of Hiran after Hirin. Like she's almost always in these films playing that um that motherly figure, that um, you know, pious figure. And Asha cultivated a very distinct style, as we talked about. She was the voice of the siren, the seductress, the cabaret dancer, the bar girl, and you name it. And from that, by the 1950s and 1960s, Asha Bosley was no longer in Letha's shadow. She was beside her in a lot of different ways. Filmmakers requested both sisters specifically because they brought different things to the table. Asha's voice had like a richness, a smokiness, complexity that you know they wanted for certain roles. They really, she was able to breathe life into these stories with her voice. And because a lot of Bollywood songs are music, she was really like acting in these in these songs as well. One of her most iconic songs is from this era, is the Marodum from 1971 film Heira Feri. This song is sensual, bold, and so distinct from what her sister would have sung. And it's still a sensation. It was a sensation. And this is something that is unmistakably Asha. To understand her career, I'm gonna give you another recap of what playback singing really is. It is a uniquely Indian cinema, South Asian cinema kind of tradition that few outside of the industry might like know about because playback singing is really specific. It's not just singing and putting out an album. It is it is more than that. So in most of the world, when you watch a screen, you know, a singer on the screen, like in a movie or in in something, it's usually um in the sense that it's a musical. But a lot of and in musicals, sorry, in musicals, it's expected that the singer and the actor is the one who is doing all of that singing. But for musicals in Bollywood, which most films, you know, in a in a in the are in Bollywood, honestly still are, are musicals, but the songs are not sang by the actors. They are sang by these kind of like shadow singers, like I would I would call them that. Now people are more aware of who they are, but for a long time, that was not a thing. So you are not hearing the actor sing live. You are getting an actress to act, emote, move her lips. But another voice, usually unseen and unknown to the audience, provides the actual singing. And this isn't like lip syncing in the modern sense, it's more of a collaboration between the performer and the voice. And the actress brings this beauty, this visual beauty, right? Like the looks, the hair, the outfit that matches the character, the you know, the stylized acts, the repetition, the emotional depth, the dance, the all of that. And the playback singer brought the vocal artistry range and technical skill to match the emotion of the scene. So they both have to work together to fit what the vision of the story is and how to carry along the plop of the story with their voice and their acting. But it's not one person doing it, so it's hard. And lip syncing is honestly really hard to do. So big shout out to those actresses that know how to do that because I've I feel like I would just like mess up when they stopped singing, you know? So that is it it is a complicated process. So Asha's Bosle is iconic in her playback singing, like for generations of actresses, but also just like for songs that represent different eras for me, for my parents, for people of different generations. So she sang in 1966, in 1966, she sang for the actress Sadhana in the film Mera Senya, the song Jumka Girare. And you've probably heard that song. It is a classic Jumka Girare Brillique Basarmi. It is a beautiful song. And all the way from 1966, she sang a similar kind of cheeky tune for a young woman, Gajil, in Dilvale Delanya Le Jange. Asha Bosley sings a song Zarasa Jumulu Meh with Abhijit. And this film, DDLJ, as we call it, um, became one of the highest-grossing Indian movies of all time and is now headed to Broadway? I don't know. Let's let's see what that's like. Remember when like they had their 25th anniversary and Sharukan and Kajal were in Switzerland together? Like, what? Oh, speaking of Switzerland, I want to go on one of those Bollywood tours. Should we do that? I'd be, I would love to do that. But like, I think I just think about that range, right? Like just going from Jumka Girare Breelike Bazarme. That's like songs that your grandma people of that generation kind of were growing up with, like maybe even her own generation. And then, like, people, you know, my age have this like huge nostalgia for 90s movies, and I loved EDLJ for that. And she continued to sing very later to her life. And like millions of people watched these films and they fell in love with those characters, the music, the romance, all to the tune of Asha's voice, without sometimes even knowing her name. She was sometimes, you know, the invisible artist and the voice behind the beautiful actress, the young actress, but she her talent made those moments immortal. And I think when there's a sound to Bollywood, like her specific sound, I think carried over generations. And I think that really was like the backbone of what created this Bollywood feel was that super high register of a voice that's so versatile and beautiful. Over her eight-decade career, she recorded over 10,000 songs. 10,000. That's not a hyperbole, that's the documented legacy of Asha Bosley. She stowed up, showed up to the studio 10,000 times to sing. Like not maybe not at once, but she Year after year, she brought her best to every recording, and like I don't think she missed. We've talked a little bit about the range of Asha Bosley, and we've talked and touched a little bit about her relationship with her sister, but we're gonna get into right now the supposed rivalry between these sisters. And I have to say that they've both passed at the age of 92 from very similar circumstances at the same hospital. The bond between these sisters is undeniably there in some cosmic sense, right? Like when when things like that happen, when there's uncanny resemblances in things like births and deaths and instances, it's it's hard to say like that there is, you know, there isn't other interventions happening here for is what I'll say right now. But there is truly no conversation where Asha Vosle and Latham and Geshkir can be separated from each other. They're sisters, they grew up with each other, their careers were shaped by one another, and for decades, the film industry was filled with rumors of a rivalry between the two sisters. I want to give a little bit of a, you know, a caveat because I think oftentimes it's easy to pit two people against each other. You know how I said earlier there's always the the Madonna and the Mary and the, you know, there's a there's what someone that's more permique promiscuous and there's someone who is more pious. And what is that, what does that mean for, you know, is that just something that sells? Is that the story here? Was this just something that I don't know, people like me who just talk about things um end up like talking about to make, you know, people listen to them? I'm curious. That's that's what I'm curious about. But that being said, there was stories that circulated about tension, about competition, about two powerful women, sisters, fighting for the same space. The gossip was so pervasive that many people believed that Letha and Asha couldn't even be in the same room together, that Letha wasn't letting Asha get any of the songs, Letha Mangeshka wasn't letting any of her sisters get any songs, um, Usha Mangeshkar and others. And here's the thing though, among all of this, neither of the sisters confirmed these rumors, or were there instances where it seemed like they would. Um, you know, in an interview after interview, when asked about a supposed fuse, the sisters dismissed it. The one Asha once said in an interview, people care did carry tales to try to create trouble, but the blood is thicker than water. And I remember sometimes both of us would be at a function and the same industry types would ignore me and interact only with her as if to prove their lore loyalty. And later, Didi and I would have a good laugh. So Didi means older sister in in Hindi, and it's a term of respect and affection. And I think that tells you a little bit something about their relationship. And I think the truth is far more nuanced than a simple rivalry. Maybe they were competing for the same work in the same industry, and comparisons are inevitable when you're sisters, unfortunately, and there's professional competition, but I do think there was a genuine sisterhood. And I and I wouldn't say that Lata and Asha G were not were not beyond knowing how a supposed feud could help them make more money. I'm not saying that they were, but I don't think they were, you know, confirming or denying these. I mean they were denying these rumors, they were dismissing it. Of course they were, that's they clearly did that. But I think maybe there being this like supposed, you know, rivalry between them, maybe it helped their careers. Maybe people thought that it was a lot of rivalry and wanted them more, they wanted to see what could happen. But there's there's many songs with both of their voices in beautiful harmony and their duets are recorded together, and theirs are songs where their voices are truly made for each other. And I know that was a part of Asha G's career was trying to separate herself from her sister, but these these voices being together are like are so good. So, in the songs that they performed together, um, there's Madj Ali Majali from Bado-san in 1968, Jap Dilak Sab Jari. Oh, pardon me, oh my goodness, from Madel Cere Anganki in 1798. And when they sang together, Asha spoke about the pressure and excitement of performing alongside her sister. So whenever she said, whenever I used to record with Lidi, I had to be extremely conscious. I had to be prepared for what different things she might add to the song. We had a habit of adding our own touches to the songs we sang. So I used to worry about what new element she would bring. And to her, here's her admission to competition um, that there was a competition between the sisters, and it was a healthy one. This competition enhanced our songs. So that's kind of what I was getting at when I was saying, I don't think it's a bitter rivalry, but it's an honest assessment of two amazing artists pushing each other to be better, challenging each other, and through that challenge created something extraordinary together. And what's really funny though, this is hilarious. In 1998, a film named Saz came out, and it supposedly attempted to dramatize the lives of Asha and Latvangeshker. But it was vehemently rejected by both the documentary, the person who not the documentary, this wasn't a documentary, but the person, the filmmaker, was like, yeah, no, this is about my own journey as an artist. But it was rejected by by Asha G, who said, uh, to have two women in long plates take a couple of incidents and exaggerate them into a three-hour film is such a waste of time. And she wasn't protecting, you know, herself or Lata G. She was rejecting the narrative that their story was one of conflict because it was a story of coexistence and their shared space and of mutual respect. So this film, though, does have uncanny resemblances to their lives. So I think the obsession with them was real. And their own coexistence and their shared space in the music industry is something really special. So in 2022, Lethem and Geshger died at age 92. Four years later in 2026, Asha Bosle died at the exact same age. And somehow, this is a coincidence. Others saw it as fitting that these two sisters were so intertwined in life that they would leave this world within years of each other at the same age. All right, we've been talking about Asha Bolsleigh, the legend, the legend, the legend. And we are gonna get into her personal life. We talked a little bit about her relationship with her sister professionally and how that looked. But let's get let's get personal, you know? Let's get into what it was like um when they were kids and growing up and how Letham and Geshkar's, you know, life and her life were inevitably intertwined. So just at 16 years old, Asha G married her sister's um manager, I guess. His name was Ganpatrao Bosle, and he was 20 years older than her. They had three years together, three children together, sorry. They were together for 20 years, but their marriage was described as difficult. And it all started very young. So when she was 16, she eloped and they got married in 1949, and her family was against that decision for various reasons. I don't really think I can probably speculate about accurately. But her elder sister, apparently, Leta Mangeshger, was upset about the marriage and disowned Asha. After she gave birth to her her son, Himanth, her relationship with her family was better, and that often happened with people. But Gunpatrao never liked Asha meeting with her sister Leta. He would not, you know, let the two sisters meet and would trouble Asha for money. Um, these are all, you know, hearsay that you hear from these, like, like this is all things that you hear from like gossip that was gossip that was gossip, and now all everyone we're speaking about has passed on. So these are stories, but these were also people's real lives, and I wanna I want to honor that. So, but in in turn, there was alleged violence in this marriage. And apparently, when Asha was pregnant, Gunbrother asked her to leave the house. So this was something that was uh a difficult and dark, dark time in in the life of Asha G. She was a single mother raising three children, so they separated and they did not live live together. So, in in the interview, she does say that um she got married very young to a man 20 years older than her. It was a love marriage, and Lata Didi didn't speak to me for a long time. She disapproved of the alliance. My family was very conservative, and they could not handle a singing star for a daughter-in-law. There was abuse and ill treatment, and finally I was asked to leave when I was expecting my youngest son, Anand. And I did go back to my mother, sisters, and brother, and I do not blame anyone or have any ill will to anyone. So that was her outlook, and that separation, that divorce from her husband, uh, from her first husband, Dan Patro, became a big turning point in her life. And she was a single mother, raising three children while maintaining one of the most demanding careers in the entertainment industry. She was working constantly, recording hundreds of songs, and holding her family together. And 20 years after her separation, she found love again. Many years later, 20 years after her separation exactly, around there, Asha's life changed for the better, um, both personally and professionally. She met Artie Berman, Rahul Liv Berman, a renowned composer. I've talked to him before when we're talking about um one of the songs when we're trying to see like Wnelly Furtado, one of the songs that she like has sampled in her song. It was actually an RD Berman song. Um, they fell in love. Rahul R.D. Berman was creative. He was understood in the world that she lived in, like he knew how to speak the language. So in 1980, they married, and this marriage was different. It was like a very mature, thoughtful marriage. It's it seems like, um, described by Asha G as a kind of mature partnership. That is two artists who understand each other's craft and each other's hearts, which I think is so beautiful. And Artie Berman and Asha worked together on some of the most iconic work that either of them worked on. The like the top stuff they worked on was together. They created music in the music studio. And while they didn't have any children together, this music definitely serves as a gift to the world in in, you know, furthering their legacies, which which is which is amazing. And Artie Berman passed away in 1994. So they were together for about 15 years, and Asha lost the partner who had stood beside her during one of the most fulfilling periods of her life. And their legacy together lives on in these recordings and these collaborations and is considered some of the finest work in Bollywood cinema. Asha's marriages, her relationships, and her experiences with love, both with her sister and her family and romantically, became the emotional foundation for so much of her singing and expression. When she sang about heartbreak, she sang from a place of understanding. And I think that makes that voice a little bit different. And when she sang about joy, it was a real joy. And when she sang about being a little knoty, a little bit um, I don't know why going through an accident, whatever. I'm saying something awkward, but you know, when she was being a little cheeky, when she was singing songs that were made for the club or, you know, the disco or the bar girl or, you know, for the the evil character in a movie, she she added a little cheek to it. From the conversation we've had today, we know that Asha Bosley lived fully. And sometimes I wonder, I ask myself, am I living fully? Am I really getting to know the full extent of life? And a part of that is feeling things fully. For me, anyways, personally, is having these rich and deep experiences. And for Asha Bosley, I definitely believe she had these rich experiences, but she also felt the real griefs and joys that come with life, like finding love again, uh, you know, after having three children, living this beautiful life, um, and then losing that love. And to really get to know her fully, you also we also get to know a little bit of her pain because she loved, she lived and loved publicly, but her her grief was also also very heavy. So from her first marriage, um, she had three children, Hemanth, Barsha, and Anand. She raised them largely as a single mother while maintaining one of the most demanding careers. Like she was, there's accounts of her, you know, doing all the housework, taking the train um to Mumbai to do all of the singing and going back. Um, and by all accounts, she was devoted to her children and balancing recording, film productions, and the needs of her children was was a lot. It was she was a mom first and she was a singer, right? So that's that's what that's what it that's what this that's how the story goes for a lot of working moms and for her life had other plans. In 2012, her daughter Varsha passed away. And the loss of the child is is quite extremely difficult and quite honestly one of the deepest pains a parent can experience. And in 2015, her elder son Haymond passed away from cancer, and in just a span of three years, she lost two of her three children. And by her later years, her youngest son Anand remained, and his daughter was also a big part of her life, and they stayed by her side, and it was Anand who was with her when she passed away in April 2026, and when she was when she was hospitalized, anyways. It was Anand who confirmed her passing and arranged and you know announced her last rites in Mumbai. So what's remarkable is that despite these personal tragedies, there's this like continuation of of working and working in a way that is bringing joy to people. She sings songs, yeah, of of joy and sorrow. Um, sometimes those things are combined and they turn into okay, let's get back to the blood. She's she was living a full life. Uh, when she sang songs about love, she was singing about it from like a place that she knows, right? It was it was good. And her her granddaughter, Zanai Bosley, posted a tribute after her death. She wrote that Asha celebrated life until her last moments, despite everything she'd endured, you know, the early marriage, the separation, and the loss of her children, the loss of her beloved second husband. She found reasons to celebrate. And I think that is a great tribute to her strength. And I think that's something that we have to remind ourselves too is finding reasons to celebrate. And when something happens, just celebrate it. I think celebration is a practice, and if we don't actively engage in it, everything is gonna feel blah. So, what are you celebrating today? Give me a shout at DJ Rara Rabia on Instagram. I always wonder what my legacy is gonna be. What do you think your legacy is going to be? Because I think this is something I'm thinking about. Like I'm talking about practicing joy, practicing and celebrating, like you know, practicing, celebrating is very important. But part of Asha Bosley's career is that her life was filled with a lot of hardship, honestly, but also a lot of joy. And that is one of the things that gives gives this tribute to Asha Bosley such, I want to say, um, it makes it interesting. It makes it something that I really wanted to talk about today because her life wasn't simple, it became, it was complicated, it was, you know, she had bumps, she had like a lot of of things happen in her life. Her husband uh separating from her husband, her husband, her second husband passing away, raising children on her own, and you know, being told like her older sister is coming at from her, and there's there's all of these narratives that were put up against Asha's G's image, her her music, her, you know, who she is. But despite it all, her clear voice and talent and cheekiness and ability to take a song and just make it her own and really play a role with her voice and her music and breathe life into the cinema of of the scene of scenes of Bollywood is so spectacularly special, and her work is is really like a testament to the beauty of of music, like her she is that girl, and in essence, she's a creative force in Indian cinema, even though audiences sometimes didn't even know her face or her name, but she is remembered, and that that is for sure. And for eight decades, she she sang, she sang. She entered the world in 1933. What a different world that was, right? It was a different country she was born in, it's now something else, the city's name's something else. 92 years in 2026, she passes away. She has over 10,000 songs, countless films, countless actresses that she sang for, and millions, if not billions, of audiences that were moved by her voice. So if you've ever cried during a Bollywood film, there's a good chance that Asha was, you know, being the background soundtrack to those tears and singing for you in that moment. If you've ever felt that joy, that rush of a dance number in Bollywood that like, you know, just hits because everyone, all the colors, all the moves are hidden, and her thick motion's looking really nice. Maybe it was maybe it was through her voice too. And she was like an she was an artist in so many ways, and the voice behind beauty, talent, and the magic that made made that that Bollywood magic possible. So she played, she played many roles is as an actress, but also in her life. Like she was a sister, a wife, a mother, a daughter, and her life wasn't simple, it was complicated, a lot, a lot like many of our lives. And I think those complications is what makes life interesting. And despite all of that, she is one of the most powerful voices. And remember, sometimes those voices that you don't see or that seem like they are going through a lot of stuff are the ones you'll never forget and the ones that leave a lasting impact, just like Asha Postley. This is Ravia. Thank you for tuning in to the Universal Radio Network. I am so excited to keep chatting with you throughout this month. If you have any more ideas or things that you want me to chat about, let me know. Give me a follow at DJ Rara Ravia on Instagram and at the Universal Radio for the Radio Network's Instagram show. Oh, account. So I hope you have a great night.