Did you know Lata Mangeshkar was presented with Honorary Citizenship of the United States?

Lata Mangeshkar commanded the Hindi cinema business and India as a whole. She is believed to have produced music in 36 distinct Indian languages, including Marathi, Tamil, Bhojpuri, Kannada, Bengali, and Assamese, among others, and making renowned songs in Hindi and Urdu.

The legendary singer had an illustrious career in playback singing and started her professional journey at 13. She had given her voice to over 25,000 songs during her 78-year-long professional career.

Did you know Lata Mangeshkar was presented with the Honorary Citizenship of the United States? According to various media reports, in 1980, the legendary singer was honoured as a citizen of The Republic of Surinam, South America in 1980. Later in 1987, she was presented with the Honorary Citizenship of United States in Houston, Texas.

Apart from being conferred with citizenship, Mangeshkar has presented the key of Georgetown, Guyana, South America in 1980 and in 2010, she was given Knight of the Legion of Honour.

In India, Lata Mangeshkar garnered several prestigious awards for her distinctive singing skills, including three National Film Awards, a Bharat Ratna, four Filmfare Awards, and twelve Bengali Film Journalists Association Awards.

Image: Getty Images

She got her first break from Bollywood's legendary film composer Ghulam Haider, who eventually went to Pakistan's Lahore following split. In 1948, Haider offered Lata the song 'Dil Mera Toda' for the film Majboor.

Lata Mangeshkar commanded the Hindi cinema business and India as a whole. Lataji is believed to have produced music in 36 distinct Indian languages, including Marathi, Tamil, Bhojpuri, Kannada, Bengali, and Assamese, among others, and making renowned songs in Hindi and Urdu.

Image: Getty Images

Lata Mangeshkar sang alongside the finest male vocalists of the day, including Kishore Kumar, Mohammad Rafi, Hemant Kumar, Mukesh, and others, from the 1940s through the 1970s. Lata released songs with the late SP Balasubrahmanyam, Shabbir Kumar, Shailendra Singh, Pankaj Udhas, Udit Narayan, Kumar Sanu, and others after the 1970s and into the 1980s and 1990s. Lataji's voice was used on songs by Sonu Nigam, Adnan Sami, AR Rahman, and Jagjit Singh, to mention a few.