Lata Mangeshkar has to thank Dilip Kumar for her Urdu skills!

"One day Anil Biswas, Yusuf bhai (Dilip Kumar) and I were travelling to work together on a train. This was in 1947 or '48. In those days, Yusuf bhai was able to travel by train as no one really recognised him! We were sitting in a compartment and Yusuf bhai asked who I was," Lata says in the book "Lata Mangeshkar: In Her Own Voice" written by Nasreen Munni Kabir and published by Niyogi Books.
"Anilda replied that I was a new singer who sings well. 'You'll like her voice when you hear her'," she quotes the famous composer as saying.
When Biswas told Kumar that Lata is Maharashtrian, the actor said "But their Urdu pronunciation isn't correct and in their singing you can smell 'daal-bhaat' (implying a Marathi accent would come through in the pronunciation of Urdu)."
This remark hurt Lata very much.
"I felt terribly hurt hearing him say such a thing," says Lata in the book that has a series of fascinating conversations between her and the London-based documentary author-filmmaker Kabir.

"I knew the composer Mohammad Shafi. He was an assistant to Anil da and Naushad sahib and a few days later, I told him that I wanted to learn Urdu so that I could pronounce it correctly. He found me a maulana, a man called Mehboob, who taught me Urdu for a short while."
The stint with Mehboob worked wonders for Lata.
"When I speak, my Urdu isn’t very good but when I sing I make sure there are no flaws in my diction," she says.
Lata later got special praise for her Urdu from Nargis’ mother Jaddanbai. While Lata was recording for the "Mahal" song ‘Aayega aanewala’, Nargis happened to be in the studio in a nearby room.
"Her mother, the celebrated singer Jaddanbai was with her that day. When I finished recording, I went out. Jaddanbai called me and asked me my name and whether I was a Maharashtrian. Then she said my Urdu is very good.
"I told her I am trying. Then she said to me: 'You pronounce the word 'baghair' very well'," Lata recalls.
About singing in other languages she says: "I first listen to someone who speaks the language and who reads the lyrics to me. I pay great attention to pronunciation. Once I hear the words spoken, I wrote the song lines phonetically in Hindi and then sing. By the grace of god, my songs in other languages – including Bengali – have been appreciated. People say they are good and the words have been correctly pronounced."

Since 1949, when Lata was first noticed for her singing talent in the song 'Aayega aanewala' from "Mahal," her magical voice has taken a firm hold of the Indian imagination.
Lata, conferred the Bharat Ratna in 2001, has recorded more songs than anyone else in the world and yet, despite her extraordinary fame, she is a deeply private person who has mostly shied away from glitz and glamour, the author says.
(Book: "Lata Mangeshkar: In Her Own Voice"; Author: Nasreen Munni Kabir; Publishers: Niyogi Books, Price: Rs 1,500; Pages: 268)