At JP saab's office, Lataji's incredibly dulcet tones wrapped around Sahir Ludhianvi's words "Ankahee dastaan ankahee reh gayee" and "Main kitni khush-kismat maa hoon".
All you Lata fans, you'll have to live without hearing these two gems. They're available on no recording label. For all practical purposes, they don't exist.
While she turns 76 on Oct 28, it's hard to associate any age with Lata. She's as timeless as she's timely.
Every era in the film industry from 1949 onwards has seen her songs defining Hindi cinema. Even today an avant-garde film like "Page 3" is defined by Lataji's song "Kitne ajeeb rishte hain yahan par".
Lata never takes her success seriously. Though scores of people have used her indomitable name to further their career and then burnt their bridges with her, she has never become embittered by the volte-face.
"Why should people's changed attitude affect me? I admit it does for a while. I'm the kind of person who thinks, broods and agonises over the slightest of aberrancy...why did so and so speak so loudly with me...why did this singer not smile at me when I smiled at her? But after a point I let go," Lata told IANS.
"There was this music director who had virtually grown up in front of me. In fact I had held him in my lap when he was a child. Some time ago when I was unable to sing his song he told my secretary, 'She should realise she's no longer what she used to be.' I've never claimed to be anything special, so why should I realise I'm not special?" Lata asks in an unguarded moment. "To lose something, you have to posses it first".
So many musicians have come and gone, using her name, fame and karma to further their career and then moved on...or worse still, move next door to befriend the other sister, Asha Bhosle.
"This is one thing I don't understand," she told me one day during one of our long conversations. "Why is it presumed by people that they can either be friendly with me or Asha? We're sisters, for god's sake. And we love each other even if our homes are divided by a door."
Today that mythic Berlin wall has all but collapsed. Asha's two adorable twin-grandkids come and go freely into the 'other' territory.
I've seen Lata is like putty in those two moppets' hands. I've seen her at home when she's totally relaxed...I still remember how and when I was introduced to her by my friend Sanjeev Kohli who's like Lata's surrogate son. Our first meeting never happened on the appointed day. Lata never showed up. But the very next day she sent a sorry message...and we met.
You have to be a Lata fan to know how that moment changed my life, how delighted I was by her candour and simplicity, or how much every conversation with her means to me. To generations of Indians she has given songs that we can hum until kingdom come.
Not a day goes by when I don't listen to her religiously. My mornings have to start with her songs. Or else the day goes wrong.
Lata epitomises all that's beautiful and graceful in life. I know of no other person who is able to create a whole spectrum of emotions within one song.
In "Ankahee dastaan" from the doomed "Sarhad", her voice trails across valleys and rivers of emotions, creating visual pictures of a mass exodus across the border during partition.
The best thing about being Lata is she doesn't know her own power. "Achcha? Did I really sing that song? You think it was well rendered. I don't think so. I can see where I've gone wrong. You can't," she tells me about some of those numbers that have nourished my life.
Sometimes she shocks me by dismissing some of her best songs. At other times she names one of her lesser gems as a personal favourite. It all depends on her mood, and her personal association of memories with a particular melody.
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