The living legend Asha Bhonsle, one of the Mangeshkar sisters was born on 8th September, 1933 in a small hamlet called ‘Goar’ in Maharastra. Born to the renowed Maharashtrian parent, actor and singer Dinanath Mangeshkar, Asha like her other sisters and brother was introduced to music at a very tender age.

Asha Bhosle is considered as one of the most versatile of South Asian singers - her range of songs includes film music, pop, ghazals, bhajans, traditional Indian Classical music, folk songs, qawwalis, and Rabindra Sangeet. She has sung in over 14 languages including Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, Gujarati, Punjabi, Tamil, English, Russian and Malay). Asha Bhosle is believed to have sung over 12,000 songs, but such estimates are not easy to validate.

Childhood:
When Asha Bhosle was nine years old, her father died. The family moved from Pune to Kolhapur and then to Bombay. She and her elder sister Lata Mangeshkar began singing and acting in films to support their family. She sang her first film song Chala Chala Nav Bala for the Marathi movie Majha Bal (1943). The music for the film was composed by Datta Dawjekar. She made her Hindi film debut when she sang the song Saawan aaya for Hansraj Bahl`s Chunariya (1948).

At the age of 16, she eloped with 31-year old Ganpatrao Bhosle, marrying him against her family`s wishes. The marriage failed miserably. Her husband and in-laws mistreated her. After a few years of marriage, Bhosle returned to her maternal home with two children and pregnant with her third child, Anand. She continued to sing in films to earn money. At that time, prominent playback singers like Geeta Dutt, Shamshad Begum and Lata Mangeshkar monopolized the singing for the "heroine" roles and the big films. Asha Bhosle got the assignments they didn`t take: singing for the bad girls and vamps or in the second-grade movies. In the 1950s, she sang more songs than any other playback singer in Bollywood, but most of these were in B or C-grade films. She also sang many songs for Marathi films such as Majha hoshil Kaa?, Khedyamadhle ghar kaularu , bugadi maziand Nach re mora which are considered classics today. She also sang many Marathi bhajans, natyageet and bhav-geet in this period which are popular in Maharashtra to this day.

Asha Bhosle first achieved success in B. R. Chopra`s Naya Daur (1957), composed by O. P. Nayyar. O.P Nayyar and Asha Bhosle`s collaboration produced many hits. Later, she also received patronage of composers such as Sachin Dev Burman and Ravi. O P Nayyar and Asha Bhosle had a professional and personal parting of the ways in the 1970s. In 1966, Asha`s performance in the duets from music director R D Burman`s first successful movie, Teesri Manzil won popular acclaim. Their collaboration produced several hits in the 70s and resulted in a marriage. In 1960s and 1970s, she became the voice of Bollywood`s most famous dancer, Helen. It is said that Helen would attend her recording sessions so that she could understand the song better and plan dance steps accordingly. Some of the most popular Asha Bhosle-Helen numbers are Piya tu ab to aaja(Caravan), O Haseena Zulfon Wali (Teesri Manzil), and Yeh Mera Dil (Don). In Umrao Jaan (1981) and Ijazat (1987), she sang beautiful traditional ghazals and proved her versatility.

Her film activities slowed in the 1990s. Her performance in the 1994 hit Rangeela was particularly notable. As late as 2005, 72-year-old Asha Bhosle`s numbers for the Tamil film Chandramukhi and for Salman Khan-starrer Lucky were chartbusters.

Taking a closer look at Asha Bhosle`s singing career can be considered having four milestones - Naya Daur (1957), Teesri Manzil (1966), Umrao Jaan (1981) and Rangeela (1995).
Naya Daur, 1957: Asha Bhosle`s first big break was B R Chopra`s Naya Daur (1957). Her duets with Rafi like Maang ke saath tumhara, Saathi haath badhana and Uden jab jab zulfein teri, penned by Sahir Ludhianvi and composed by O P Nayyar, gave her recognition.

Teesri Manzil, 1966: Asha Bhosle became a pop crooner with Rahul Dev Burman`s Teesri Manzil (1966). When she first listened to the tune of the song Aaja Aaja, she felt that she would not be able to sing the Western dance number. R D Burman offered to change the music. She was offended a bit and took it as a challenge to sing the song. After rehearsing for 10 days, when she finally sang the song, an impressed R D Burman handed her a 100-rupee note. Aaja Aaja and other songs of the film, O Haseena Zulfonwali and O Mere Sona Re (all three duets with Rafi, another popular Bollywood singer), became rage of the day.

Umrao Jaan, 1981: By 1980s, Asha Bhosle had been stereotyped as a "cabaret singer" and a "pop crooner". In Rekha-starrer Umrao Jaan, she sang ghazals like Dil cheez kya hai, In aankhon ki masti ke, Ye kya jagah hai doston and Justju jiski thi. The songs proved her capable of doing fairly serious songs. The music director Khayyam, had lowered her pitch by half a note. Asha herself was surprised that she could sing so differently. The ghazals won her the first National Film Award of her career and proved her versatility.

Rangeela, 1995: In 1995, a 62-year old Asha Bhosle did playback for young actress Urmila Matondkar in the movie Rangeela. She pleasantly surprised her fans with superhit songs like Tanha Tanha and Rangeela Re. The songs was composed by iconoclastic music director A. R. Rahman, who went on to record many more songs with her. Particularly notable was Asha Bhosle`s first song with A.R.Rahman, Tanha Tanha, an oomph-oozing number.

Awards:
Asha Bhosle has won eight Filmfare awards (one special award for Rangeela). She won the award in 1967 and 1968, when Lata Mangeshkar still used to accept the award (Lata asked not to be considered for the award after 1969 to promote new talent). After receiving the award in 1977, Asha emulated her elder sister and requested that her name not be considered for the awards hereafter. She was later given the Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award in 2001. Following is the list of her Filmfare Awards: