Meet Raj Singh Dungarpur who dated Lata Mangeshkar but never married her

Meet Raj Singh Dungarpur
who dated Lata Mangeshkar but never married her

The ace cricketer, had fought with the family to marry her, and both stayed single lifelong.

Notedly, cricketers marrying Bollywood Celebrities did not begin with Anushka Sharma and Virat Kohli, not even with Tiger Pataudi and Sharmila Tagore.

It was Years before either of these celebs couple was one couple a legendary singer and a cricketer who were set to get married, only for destiny to pull them apart.

Raj Singh Dungarpur was a cricketer, lawyer, and erstwhile royal as the heir to the Dungarpur kingdom in the Rajputana.

The youngest son of Maharawal Lakshman Singhji, the ruler of Dungarpur, Raj was born in 1935 and began playing cricket first for Madhya Bharat and eventually for Rajasthan and Central India.

He shifted base to Bombay (now Mumbai) in the late 50s to study law while he continued to play the Ranji Trophy.

There, while playing club cricket, he befriended Hridayanath Mangeshkar and was introduced to his sister Lata. The two immediately developed a liking for each other and became romantically involved.

Raj was not the heir to the Dungarpur throne but still a prince, the son of the Raja. Hence, his family was against the idea of him marrying a commoner.

The young prince fought with his family initially in a bid to convince them about Lata but his parents were not in favour of him getting married to Lata, a commoner who was also in the film industry.

Eventually, even when Raj promised his father that he would not marry Lata, yet, the two continued to be romantic partners. When Dungarpur became the President of BCCI, he ensured that Lata received tickets for every match India played at home.

Raj and Lata’s decision was to stay single forever
While Lata and Raj did not marry each other, they also never married anyone else. As per reports, the two remained devoted to each other lifelong.

Dungarpur was known to carry a recorder in his pocket that had some selected songs of Lata. The singer also performed fundraising concerts for BCCI at Dungarpur’s behest, most famously after the 1983 World Cup win. Dungarpur died in 2009 at the age of 73.
Lata Mangeshkar passed away in 2022 at the age of 92.

News Edit K.V.Raman