Asha Bhosle Was Also A Great Cook, KT Journo Recalls Interview With Legendary Singer In 1990S

2026-04-12 02:14:55

(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) Interacting with Asha Bhosle in Dubai in the early 1990s, even before she had started her Asha's restaurant chain in the Gulf and UK, was an experience by itself. Dazzling, ever-smiling and cheerful - her memories about her early days in Mumbai are still fresh in my mind.

Asha was unlike her elder sister, Lata Mangeshkar, who I had also interviewed. While Lata was to the point in answering my queries, Asha was relaxed and we had a good lunch at a nice restaurant at a Dubai hotel.

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She earnestly shared memories of the tough days when she used to travel by local trains to reach the studios in the suburbs for her recordings; the interactions she had with virtually all the top Bollywood stars of the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, and on how they impressed her.

Asha also had this great sense of curiosity to find out from people interviewing her about the others whom they had interacted with. I told her about my meetings in Dubai and India with other great actors and celebrities of that era including Dilip Kumar, Dev Anand, O.P. Nayyar, Shatrughan Sinha, Zeenat Aman, Mukri, and even other classical music greats, including Pandit Bhimsen Joshi.

Asha was all ears and chimed in with memories of her dealings with the great stars.

Combining music and food

A legendary singer, Asha was also a great cook. During the course of our lunch, she was overjoyed with the variety of delicacies that were brought by the staff.

She would relish the food and tell me about how she too used to make the dishes at her home in south Mumbai. Of course, this was much before she actually set up her own brand of restaurants, but that desire to combine music and food was always in her mind.

Another of her great passions was travelling. She talked of her visits, both in India and abroad, and how they shaped her thinking.

She started her fine-dining restaurant chain, Asha's in Dubai in 2002. It has expanded over the years and has a presence in Abu Dhabi, Doha, Bahrain, Kuwait, Manchester and Birmingham.

Asha began her musical journey when she was just 10 with her maiden song, 'Chala Chala Nav Bala' for a 1943 Marathi film 'Majha Bal.' Five years later, she sang for the first time for a Hindi film 'Chunariya.'

The younger sister of Lata Mangeshkar, she was born in the famous Mangeshkar musical family. Other singers in the family included Varsha Bhosle (her daughter, who died in 2012), sisters Usha Mangeshkar, who is 90, and Meena Khadikar, who is 94, besides brother Hridaynath Mangeshkar, who is 88.

Legendary Indian singer Asha Bhosle passed away on Sunday morning at Mumbai's Breach Candy Hospital. She was 92.