This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.

During 1960-70, Lata Mangeshkar had sung some beautiful non-filmy ghazals. Two of these NFS, viz. dahar mein naqsh-e-wafaa and aankh se aankh milaata hai koi have already been covered in the blog. These ghazals were composed by Faiyyaz Shaukat and K Mahavir respectively. In 1969, a LP of her non-filmy ghazals of Mirza Ghalib composed by her brother Pandit Hridaynath Mangeshkar was released.

Lata Mangeshkar had sung many ghazals in Hindi films especially under the baton of Madan Mohan. She felt that singing ghazals composed by Madan Mohan was always a challenge for her and the end result was very satisfying. I also get to know from her various interviews and write-ups that she was fond of singing ghazals. Perhaps this may be one of the reasons that she…