The girl with the golden voice, at 75

Lata sounds the sweetest under Laxmikant-Pyarelal. Her voice is haunting under Roshan, pleasant under Shankar-Jaikishan and Kalyanji-Anandji, deliciously complex under Salil Choudhary and mesmerising under Naushad, says M.L. Dhawan, quoting the singer on her association with various music directors. LATA Mangeshkar, the doyen of film music who turned 75 recently, has aptly been described by Pandit Jasraj as a confluence of talent and voice that comes only once in a century. Lata’s voice, during her 60-year-long career which saw her recording as many as 10,000 songs, has permeated the conscience of film song lovers to such an extent that most other singers seem like pale copies of her.

I owe it all to God and my father
Vimla Patil talks to Lata Mangeshkar on her life, times and her art:
"THE first memory of my childhood is the family home in Sangli, when I was about four years old. In this town, my father — Master Dinanath Mangeshkar — ran a theatre company under the patronage of Raje Patwardhan of that riyasat.

HUNDRED YEARS OF ST. BEDE'S
Light of learning atop a hill in Shimla
by Aruti Nayar
THE first thing that strikes one about St. Bede’s College is the picturesque, almost idyllic, location of its campus. Nestling amidst spruce, fir and oak trees that have witnessed hundred years of the college’s growth, the institution has been a learning ground for numerous ex-Bedians who became "ladies from girls."

TIE BREAKER
Are you spying on your spouse?
by Clive Witchalls
IN these Jerry Springer-literate times, with all the heightened relationship paranoia that culture provokes, you might not be surprised to learn that there is a software package called Spector which was designed with one end in mind: to help you to snoop on your partner. Spector acts like a spy camera in your PC: it captures the detail of every (potentially amorous) email and every (budding) chatroom flirtation.

Master of lacquer art
by D.S. Kapoor
JIT Singh, born in Lahore in 1923, was initiated into the world of art at an early age by his father Sardar Bela Singh, who was a craft teacher at the Mayo School of Art, Lahore. Evincing interest in art, Jit Singh used to accompany his father to the art school during his childhood. Later, he joined the school and obtained a five-year diploma in lacquer art from the Mayo school under the guidance of Ustad Mubark Ali in 1940.