When Lata Mangeshkar ‘flew into a rage’ because Raj Kapoor implied she was ‘ugly’

Lata Mangeshkar was the inspiration behind Raj Kapoor’s 1978 film Satyam Shivam Sundaram, but for reasons that she didn’t appreciate. His daughter Ritu Nanda revealed the story in her 2002 book, Raj Kapoor Speaks.

“I visualised the story of a man falling for a woman with an ordinary countenance but a golden voice and wanted to cast Lata Mangeshkar in the role,” the book quoted Raj Kapoor as saying. He believed that love and faith depended on the purity of the relationship and not on physical beauty. Lata Mangeshkar had agreed to star in the film but later declined the offer.

The incident is explored in journalist Vir Sanghvi’s autobiography, in which he recalls meeting the late filmmaker, and what he said about the Nightingale of India, with whom he ‘had a history’.

In the book, Sanghvi recalls Raj Kapoor talking about Satyam Shivam Sundaram in philosophical terms. “Take a stone,” he said. “It is just a stone. But put some religious markings on it and it becomes God. It is how you see things that matters. You hear a beautiful voice. But only later do you discover that it comes from an ugly girl…”

The filmmaker paused and commanded, “Take out the thing about ugly girl. Lata will get upset.” The writer provided context for Raj Kapoor’s remark. He wrote, “I knew what it was he was talking about. In the early publicity for Satyam Shivam Sundaram, he had declared that he had been inspired to make the movie by the contrast between Mangeshkar’s face and voice. She had (understandably) flown into a rage and refused to sing playback for the movie.”

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But the filmmaker had eventually managed to convince her to sing for the film. Satyam Shivam Sundaram starred Shashi Kapoor and Zeenat Aman, and was controversial upon release, particularly for its erotic nature, which many viewed as obscene.