As notes go, these have been particularly jarring. For a city that once ushered in a morning with the thin but sweet voice of Lata Mangeshkar singing bhajans on radio is up in arms against one of India’s most enduring icons. For the diva, Mumbai believes, has lately been hitting all the wrong notes.

Who would have thought that the reclusive singer of some 30,000 songs would be at the centre of an unseemly fight over a fly-over? But for the last few days, the singer ? the only one, apart from M.S. Subbulakshmi, to have been honoured with a Bharat Ratna ? has been scrapping with the government on just that. Mangeshkar and her neighbours are on one side, and the rest of Mumbai, seemingly, on the other.

The story goes back some six years, when Mangeshkar ? who lives on the first floor flat of Prabhu Kunj, a building on Peddar Road in south Mumbai ? got wind of a state government plan to build a fly-over over the busy road. The government was convinced that it would decongest a major traffic bottleneck. Mangeshkar and her group thought that the fly-over, which would pass near her first-floor residence, would make life difficult ? more polluted, for one ? on Peddar Road.

When Mangeshkar demurs, governments bend. So the project was put on hold, and life went on as always on Peddar Road, where a two-bedroom flat costs something like Rs 3 crore. Till last week, that is ? when the controversy erupted all over again. This time round, the government seems unwilling to drop the project. And Mangeshkar, one of Maharashtra’s proud daughters, says she will leave Mumbai if the government goes ahead with its Peddar Road fly-over plan.

That would be a pity for Mumbai, for the city and Mangeshkar have always been synonymous, even though Lata ? christened Hema Hardikar ? was born at Sikh Mohalla in Indore in neighbouring Madhya Pradesh. Her father, Dinanath Mangeshkar, a classical singer and a theatre actor, moved to Mumbai when his first-born, lovingly called Lata, was only five.

That was also when she started taking music lessons from her father. Legend has it that the strict Dinanath had even banned the playing of Hindi film music at home, unless his children ? a group of five that included son Hridaynath and daughters Lata, Asha, Usha and Meena ? were listening to K.L. Saigal.

Dinanath didn’t want his children to have anything to do with cinema, which was why an initial proposal, sometime in the early forties, for Lata to sing in a film was firmly nixed by the family. So Mangeshkar grew up listening to Saigal and singing songs. It was only after Dinanath died of a heart disease ? when Lata was only 13 ? that she started her career in cinema ? as a singer and an actor of two -bit roles.

Mumbai knows all that ? for it has always been greatly indulgent of a singer who enjoys a cult status in not just the state, but the rest of the country as well. After all, she made her mark in 1942, when she sang her first song for the film Kiti Hasaal. She has, since then, sung for a host of music maestros ? including Salil Chowdhury, S.D. Burman, Naushad, Shankar Jaikishan and Anil Biswas. Moulded by legends, Mangeshkar is today a legend herself.

Which is why, old-timers still like to recall how, in 1945, music director Ghulam Haider urged producer S. Mukherji to allow Lata, then 16, to sing a song for his new film. The producer didn’t like her voice, which prompted Haider, who had earlier introduced the singer Noor Jehan to the world, to say: “Let me foretell today that this girl will put to shame everyone else including Noor Jehan. Producers and directors will fall at her feet, begging her to sing in their films.”

Even now, producers ? and governments ? tend to fall at her feet. Which is possibly why the singing sensation thought the Maharashtra government wouldn’t go ahead with a plan that disturbed her. The Peddar Road residents’ welfare association had found a larger issue to take up as well. The area, it stressed, was a seismic zone and prone to earthquakes. So a fly-over, Mangeshkar and her supporters felt, would weaken the foundation of the buildings in Peddar Road.

But despite the outcry from Peddar Road, the state government is going ahead with its plans ? a move that has clearly irked the singer. She told an interviewer recently that she would leave the city if that happened. And though Mangeshkar later denied having said this (which prompted the newspaper to send her a copy of the recorded interview), the deed was done. Mumbai was aghast.

Prominent citizens such as theatre-actress Dolly Thakore spoke up. The criticism was muted, yet, for the first time, there was a hint of disapproval in the comments that followed. Most found it distasteful that a person of Mangeshkar’s stature was spearheading a cause that concerned just a handful of people. Several citizens sought to stress that the larger public good ? the fact that the fly-over would benefit the city ? had to be kept in mind. “Lata Mangeshkar can afford a house in any beautiful spot in the city,” says Thakore.

She has a lovely flat in London, where she often holidays with sister, Asha. Despite her age and her penchant, a la Garbo, for solitude, Lata Mangeshkar is not always alone. She has a legion of male admirers ? among them Raj Singh Dungarpur from the cricketing world.

But for Mangeshkar ? who has, like Ceaser’s wife, always been above reproach ? the controversy puts an unnecessary blot to an image that has always been pristine: a picture of humility, complete with kohl-rimmed eyes, plaited hair and a modestly-draped saree.

It will be a while before Mangeshkar gets back her spot on the pedestal. The bridge over troubled waters ? or troubled traffic ? has brought her down, just a bit.