The iconic singer passed away at the age of 92 at Breach Candy Hospital, where she had been admitted on Saturday evening due to extreme exhaustion and a chest infection.

The singer, who defied convention to add heft, depth and even oomph to women's voices in cinema, be it the lovelorn Meena Kumari in "Hum Intezar Karenge" or the unapologetically seductive Helen in "Piya Tu Ab To Aaja", is survived by her son Anand.

Her voice, which got listeners jiving to "Aaja, Aaja" just as skilfully as she got them to mourn lost love in "Chain Se Ham Ko Kabhi", filled the growing years of generations of Indians. And millions mourned her loss.

Asha Bhosle ruled the Hindi playback singing world along with her sister Lata for seven decades with virtually every movie song recorded in Bollywood for female leads using their voices.

Asha Bhosle herself sang for more than eight decades, recording an incredible 12,000 songs, a career graph almost impossible to take stock of. Her first song was in 1943 at the age of 10 for the Marathi film "Majha Bal". She continued to sing until the late 2010s and beyond, making her the longest performing singers in global music history.