Born in Sangli, Asha Bhosle considered Kolhapur her childhood town

Kolhapur: Asha Bhosle used to call Kolhapur her childhood town, even though her birthplace was Sangli. She remembered many joyous and carefree days in Kolhapur, unlike her siblings. While her elder sister Lata, who, after passing away of their father Pandit Deenanath, had to work as child artist and theatre singer, the other siblings, Usha, Meena and Hrudaynath, were very young.

The children, with their mother, had shifted to Kolhapur after their father passed away. In Kolhapur, Lata started getting accolades for theatre singing and was patronised by Master Vinayak, a friend of Deenanath Mangeshkar.


Once, in an interview, Lata Mangeshkar had shared a memory of life in Sangli. "One day, I took Asha to my school. She was eight-nine months old. I was carrying her on my lap. The Class teacher asked me not to bring babies to class. I got angry thinking how a teacher could ask the daughters of Deenanath Mangeshkar not to come to school. I rushed back home and told my mother that I don't want to go to school. I was then tutored at home," she had said.

While Lata Mangeshkar never had formal schooling, when her siblings came to Kolhapur, Lata wanted Asha to go to school. She enrolled her sister into the Bhakti Seva Vidyapeeth Highschool at Mahadwar Road, near the famous Mahalaxmi temple. The family had stayed in Kolhapur between 1942 to 1947, and Asha studied in the school during this period.

During filming documentary on her life in 1988, Asha Bhosle visited the school, and at that time, a few older structures of the building remained. One of them was the classroom in which she had studied nearly 40 years ago. The rest of the school was in a new building.

"This is my school. There is a new building now, but this one is old, and this is my class. I was very young. I learned so many good things here. I was very naughty and always singing. I was a singing star at that young age. So many teachers used to call me to their class, and ask me to sing and dance. Our teacher, Mr Mahajan, he always angry with me. He always told everyone: ‘She always sings in the class and plays tabla. She is not a good student.' But that time was very beautiful. I wish I could go back to childhood," Asha had said.

Once during the interaction with reporters in Kolhapur, she recalled how she used to run from Mirajkar Tickti through narrow lanes to their rented home so that her ice-cream did not melt. The rented house belonged to Hirabai and Lakshman Karekar. An earlier landlord had asked their mother for a Rs 15 rent, which was difficult for the family to pay. Someone relayed the concerns to Hirabai, who, after speaking to her husband Lakshman, fixed a Rs 10 rent. The Mangeshkars visited the Karekars house a few times even after they found the fame.

"They used to live in the one-room upper storey section of the two-storied Karekar Wada, near Khari Corner. The siblings used to visit the house of Madhavrao Shinde, who was also into theatre. Madhavrao Shinde's mother used to bathe the sisters, oil and comb their hairs," said Milind Yadav, the activist and son-in-law of Madhavrao's brother and Olympian Dinkarrao Shinde.
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