When she was offered the job of singing at Trincas, Kolkata’s iconic restaurant, Usha Uthup insisted she’d perform in a sari, not a dress. Forty years later, the singer is still rocking the sari-bindi-gajra look, enthralling audiences and fans with her electrifying performances. The original diva of pop music in India spoke to Femina.
I have this abiding memory of the Usha Uthup phenomenon from college. We were brainstorming for the annual fest on the performance at the grand finale. When someone
suggested Usha Uthup, the reaction was enthusiastic, except for one spoilsport who asked, “But then, what’s new?” The question seemed irrelevant later when on the appointed date the packed-to-capacity crowd rocked, cheered, shouted, sang and danced away the night at the St Xavier’s College grounds, Kolkata. That evening summed up the singer’s USP: an electrifying performance every single time.
There is a Kolkata Knight Rider’s match the next day. And Usha, like she has done in the past, is planning to go with her staff to cheer and to make the crowd at Eden Gardens groove. “Every show that I have is a relationship I form. I only need someone in front of me for that relationship to be complete. I could have a crowd of 50,000 or 5, it doesn’t matter. And when I am in that situation, I give, unabashedly, all 100 per cent of me.” Usha adds earnestly, “It’s often said that I play to the galleries. I am honest in admitting that I love appreciation.”
With the trademark bindi, sari, flower-bedecked plait, and clanging bangles in place, 67-year-old Usha could well have been left behind long ago in the music stakes, making way for younger aspirants closer to her granddaughter Ayesha’s age. But then Kolkata’s original didi does one better—she performs with Ayesha. Last year, the audience at the INK (Innovation and Knowledge) Talks at Kochi were in for a pleasant surprise as Usha, while conducting her show, Skyfall In A Sari had her daughter Anjali and Ayesha join in. Not surprisingly, the crowd roared for an encore.
Looking back at her illustrious journey, Usha thinks that the key to her professional success is that she is a compulsive optimist. “This has stood me in good stead. From the beginning, it helped me recognise my ‘difference’ or ‘limitations’ and turn them into my strengths,” she says simply, telling me about the time when she was a schoolgirl studying at St Agnes, Byculla, Mumbai. “We had music lessons and the teacher felt my voice was way too base and left me out.” Being left out hasn’t ever been Usha’s style and she soon turned it around for herself, bagging distinct roles and solo parts in dramas and elocutions. Later on, when she was a playback singer in Hindi films, it was mostly the ’70s vamps that got to lipsnyc to Usha’s sonorous, booming voice rather than the virtuous heroines. Of course, her inherent optimism was not the only factor in her rise. Usha also likes to recall the great times with her family, and the opportunities she got. “We were a middle-class family that prayed together, ate together and, of course, sang together. My sisters Indira and Uma sang together and then Maya and I added to the musical cocktail and we came to be known as the Sami sisters.” The love for music had always been intense in the Iyer household and the repertoire of artistes they listened to was vast. “Although, for my parents, KL Saigal, Bade Ghulam Ali, Begum Akhtar, Kishori Amonkar vied with Frank Sinatra, The Beatles and Elvis Presley, I had the added influence of Bollywood songs, courtesy my neighbours.”
It was on a family vacation in Chennai that their aunt took the family to Nine Gems, a nightclub which had a live band playing. “As I was singing and tapping along, my aunt asked, ‘Why don’t you sing?’ Usha sang a few songs, including Hank William’s Jambalaya, which had the crowd on its feet. At the end of the evening, she got a token of appreciation for the impromptu gig: a Kanjeevaram sari and an invitation to sing at the nightclub for a week. That was followed by a gig at another hotel in the city. The late 1960s marked a milestone in her career when she received a letter offering her a job at the legendary nightclub Trincas situated in Kolkata’s happening Park Street area. Usha accepted the offer, but not before writing to Trincas’ Ellis Joshua, who had offered her the job, to inform him that she didn’t wear dresses. On the day she landed in Kolkata for the first time, she headed straight to Park Street. “As I went on the stage in my sari, I could feel all these doubting looks directed at me.” Ask her if the sari has been a marketing strategy since then, and Usha is quick to refute. “Along with the salwar kameez, which was more like casual wear, a sari was the only dress I was comfortable in. There is no specific strategy involved, that was me then, that’s me now too!”
She regaled the audience with English numbers and also sang the Bengali Purano Shei Diner Kotha based on the Scottish song Auld Lang Syne. It was the Bengali sentiment for Rabindra sangeet that helped her establish a rapport with the audience. The singer has lent her voice to 17 Indian languages, apart from some foreign ones, too. She remembers the time when she had sung in Swahili for a festival in Kenya and the crowd loved her so much that she was accorded an honorary citizenship. Usha’s tryst with Bollywood happened when she was performing in Delhi and a film crew of the Navketan banner spotted her. “I was all set to sing Dum Maro Dum in a duet with Lata Mangeshkar. Then, suddenly, I was dropped and no one got back to me about it.”
Usha is candid about the all-powerful establishment of the Mangeshkar sisters, Lata and Asha,who called the shots in those days. “These things happen all the time when people are in power. The eternal optimist in me knew I would still carve a niche for myself and, in any case, I had my nightclub singing to go back to.” She reprised some of RD Burman’s songs, like Mehbooba Mehbooba, which she sang with plenty of improvisations. Usha shared a special rapport with the legendary music composer—he would drop in at nightclubs simply to hear her sing. But as she says, “It is true that ‘gaane gaane mein likha hain gaane waale ka naam.” In life, you will be hurt, and when you have a door closing in on you, you have to figure out the windows for yourself.” Of course, the connection with Bollywood continued eventually as she sang some all-time hits for RD Burman, Bappi Lahiri, Vishal Bhardwaj, Ilaiyaraaja, Jatin-Lalit, AR Rahman and Shankar-Ehsan-Loy among others. From One Two Cha Cha Cha to Hari Om Hari, Ramba Ho to Shaan Se, and later, Darling and Aami Shotti Bolchhi, she cherishes the associations with her music directors. She says it is imperative to have an open mind and accept change. “I believe music, like fashion, comes back in cycles and I have been here so long, I can catch the drift and deliver accordingly.” Usha’s brand of both, music and fashion will never go out of style. No matter what the year, she’ll always bring the house down, rocking like it’s the ’60s.