Indian pop icon Usha Uthup is 74 and she has been singing for 53 years. She can sing jazz, folk, pop, rock and in Bangla, Assamese, Gujarati, Tamil, Malayalam, and in a total number of 17 Indian languages and eight foreign languages. “It’s not just for the records. I am regularly singing in all these languages,” says the singer.
Usha says her biography The Queen of Indian Pop: The Authorised Biography of Usha Uthup by Vikas Kumar Jha, translated by Srishti Jha (Penguin) celebrates life and music. “When people ask me my genre of music, I realise that I truly am a people’s singer. It’s quite amazing, especially when you are singing in so many different languages. For example, while performing western music and when I notice a Tamil person in the audience, then I change to singing ‘Bampara kannaale kaadhal sangathi sonnale’, There is an instant connect. None of this is planned, I built on it from show to show.”
Similarly, her legendary bindi-saree-gajrae look happened because of her South Indian middle class upbringing where women wore sarees with jasmine flower to adorn their long braids. “It was not a conscious marketing decision to position my image. I’ve been wearing bangles from ever since I can remember. Even when I am taking an early morning flight, the security girls at airport ask me poo engey,” she laughs, adding, “I cannot grumble about it.”
