The heavens take their voice back.

'Didi' as she was lovingly called by one and all, Lata Mangeshkar's professional career spanned across 8 decades. There are not many people alive who have lived in a world without her voice, and surely, there wont be more people adding to that list. Some people start as a professional, be so good at it that initially they influence everyone related to that particular field of work, then it ripples and ultimately reach everyone, and then they create that field of work around themselves and then it becomes hard to imagine a world without their presence. Such people, turn from a professional to an influence to a phenomenm and then to an emotion. Their stature so majestic and their legacy so grand that words like Master, Legend, and all that look so punny. Such a person was Lata Mangeshkar.

As a young kid, I and I think if we as a generation can recall, Ae mere watan ke logon, Ae malik tere bande hum, Vande Matram and many such songs which made even our intolerable school sound system so melodious. With her infinite number of songs, she became a part of our lives. Whatever be our mood, Happy, Sad, In love, Out of love, quirky or thoughtful, is there even something, she did not sing for. Absolutely Negative. We have all read story of the Golden touch of King Midas, I think Lata Mangeshkar's voice is the closest, I have experienced in real life. Every song, she graced with her voice, was sure to get embedded in history.

Recently, she expressed her strong disapproval of badly recreating old songs by Music industry mafias for monetary benefits. She spoke for a strong cause before falling ill for the last time, and that is, to let the rights of music in hands of the creators, the musicians, and not the corporate producers, whose only objective is making profits. In her last days, she spoke for arts, she spoke for artists.The fact that she gave us, everything she has to offer, and took retirement a few years before leaving this world in her physical form, makes it somewhat bearable, that she got us used to live in a world where we wont look forward to more of her gifts, but I have a dream that using technology and AI, we would be able to soon make songs with her voice, and new songs, just hope that the music mafias do not exploit it.

She will live forever among us in form of her voice, her story, her ideals and I can sense that as long as there are languages she sang in, and as long as there are species with acoustic senses, she will keep on living. Nonetheless, it's as sad day for everyone of us, who got touched by her presence in form of her voice. Just as the sun set on this Vasant Panchmi, the shadow of goddess Saraswati walked away from us. Rest in glory. Lata Mangeshkar (1929-Forever)

"Tujhse Naraz nahi zindagi, hairaan hun main."