Lata Mangeshkar passed away at the age of 92. The singer was in the ICU of Mumbai’s Breach Candy Hospital and was undergoing treatment for coronavirus and pneumonia. In her decorous career, she gave her voice to many songs but ‘Ae Mere Watan Ke Logon’ was special of all.
The story
The song ‘Ae Mere Watan Ke Logon’ was written in Hindi by Kavi Pradeep, composed by C. Ramchandra, and sung by Lata Mangeshkar to commemorate Indian Soldiers who had died in the Sino-Indian War in the year 1962. On January 27, 1963, two months after the war, as part of the Republic Day celebrations in Delhi, singer Lata Mangeshkar had performed in front of an audience that comprised President S Radhakrishnan, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, and many distinguished guests.
The writer, Kavi Pradeep was moved by the casualties caused due to the war and on his walk along the Mahim Beach in Mumbai he got the idea of ‘Ae Mere Watan Ke Logon’. He wrote the term on a pen borrowed by another walker and on a piece of foil that he ripped out from his cigarette pack.
A few weeks later, Pradeep was approached by producer Mehboob Khan to write a song for a fundraiser scheduled to be held at the National Stadium in New Delhi. Pradeep accepted the offer but did not reveal any details of the song he planned to write. He recruited music director C. Ramchandra to write the music and asked Lata Mangeshkar to sing the song. Ramchandra went on to offer the song to Lata’s sister Asha due to a misunderstanding between him and Lata. However, Pradeep felt no one other than Mangeshkar could do justice to it and so he personally convinced her to sing it.
In the first live performance of the song, the then PM, Jawaharlal Nehru was moved to tears and he said “Those who don’t feel inspired by Aye mere Watan Ke logo don’t deserve to be called a Hindustani.”
As per reports, the song was meant to be a one-off thing and not a commercial one but when she went back to Mumbai after the event in Delhi, the song had already created a huge buzz among the fans who loved it so much also inspired by the element of patriotism.
The news of Nehru being moved to tears also went on to spread.
Recalling the song in 2013, Mangeshkar stated that she never expected the song to be so successful, saying, “Since it was not part of a film, I thought it would have a limited impact. Ae Mere Watan Ke logon became my signature tune. No show of mine, no concert or event is complete until I sing it.”
