India’s “Nightingale” Sings for Kṛṣṇa

Lata Mangeshkar, the world's most prolific recording artist (with more than twenty thousand songs to her credit), recently went on a rare concert tour of North America.

Known as "the nightingale of India," the humble Miss Mangeshkar has won the Padma Bushan, India's highest national award, and so many "Filmfare" awards (her country's equivalent of the Oscar) that she's had to declare herself ineligible for more. Time magazine called her "the indisputable and indispensable queen of India's playback singers."

When she went on stage last January 30 at Los Angeles' Shrine Auditorium, Miss Mangeshkar told her audience, "I'm giving this concert as a benefit program for the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. The proceeds are going to a cultural theater they're building in Bombay." She then captivated her fans with a three-hour concert beginning with the Bhagavad-gita and going on to the popular songs that have made her India's most famous vocalist.

"I began singing at age five," she said after the concert. "My father taught me our classical music-ragas from the Vedas. When I was a child, I learned to sing only for God." And why the benefit concert? "My whole family are members of the Hare Krsna society… When I sing for Lord Krsna; everything is complete."