Sri Lanka my second home - Asha Bhosle

Asha Bhosle Live in Concert with Bhathiya and Santhush show will be held at Sugathadasa Indoor Stadium today at 7 pm in aid of the Brave Hearts Fund. ANCL is the print media sponsor of the event

Ruwini JAYAWARDANA

"Sri Lanka is very similar to India in many ways. The only difference is in the language. The people look like us and their lifestyle is similar to ours. I do not feel a major difference when I visit the country. I am very much at home here," says India's iconic playback vocalist Asha Bhosle.

"Working with Sri Lankan talent had been a refreshing experience for me. Some people are of the belief that veterans should duet with veterans but I do not share this idea because I do not have an ego. It is a barrier to success. Working with youths keeps me young as I believe that my thinking is young," she said. Bhosle says that the potentiality of India receiving Sri Lankan music is high because Sri Lankan tunes comprise mellifluous melodies. "Most people do not understand the language but are enthralled by the music. Language does not matter much as long as the music and voice are of high quality," she said.

With a career spanning over six decades and over 1,000 Bollywood movie songs to her name, Bhosle is one of the most reputed and highly acclaimed playback vocalists in India. Her strength lies in her voice range and versatility. She has sung in over 15 languages including Sinhala. Bhosle is the younger sister of famous playback vocalist Lata Mangeshkar and is the first Indian artiste to be nominated for a Grammy Award for her work on Legacy, an album with Ustad Ali Akbar Khan.

She has over 12,000 songs to her name and was dubbed the 'Most Recorded Artiste' in the world by the World Records Academy in 2009. The Indian government honoured her with the Padma Vibhushan in 2008 and Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 2000.

She is in Sri Lanka for the second time to feature in a concert with music duo Bhathiya and Santhush. She visited the island in 2009 for a guest appearance in BnS's single Dedunna Sedi and a Hindi-language version of their hit song Pethu Pem Pathum.

"I like to sing in many other languages because there are so many other languages in India. The language changes in between two cities. I have sung in so many languages like Hindi, Assamese, Urdu, Telugu, Marathi, Bengali, Gujarati, Punjabi, Tamil, English, Russian, Czech, Nepali, and Malay but I have never tried Sinhala before. I do not find a vast difference between the two. The tunes are melodious and the language is not difficult to pronounce. Malayalam and Tamil are much more difficult. It was like Hindi to me. I was very much at home with the language," she said.