Bollywood, Mumbai bid tearful ‘alvida’ to ‘Disco King’ Bappi Lahiri

Mumbai, Feb 17  Hundreds of Mumbaikars, Bollywood personalities and music fans bid a tearful ‘alvida’ (adieu) to the ‘Disco King’

Alokesh alias Bappi Lahiri as his funeral procession started here on Thursday.

The mortal remains of Bappi-da – as he was revered in the industry – were carried out of his Juhu bungalow to a flower-bedecked van with a huge hoarding of his photo with the trademark jewellery, for his final journey to the Vile Parle crematorium.

Lahiri’s daughter and son, Rema and Bappa and other family members were seen weeping inconsolably as the body was placed on the van and slowly wended its way from Juhu to Vile Parle, a couple of kms away for the last rites.

Lahiri, 69, breathed his last around 11.45 p.m. the CritiCare Hospital on Tuesday night and Bappa returned from the US early today for performing the funeral rituals.

Bollywood personalities like Alka Yagnik, Vidya Balan, Ila Arun, Bhushan Kumar, Mika Singh, Shaan, Kumar Sanu, Shakti Kapoor, Rupa Ganguly and more were present at the crematorium or at the Lahiri residence to pay their homage to the departed music legend.

Virtually the entire Bollywood – which swayed to his tunes in some or the other film – paid rich tributes to Lahiri including Amitabh Bachchan, Asha Bhosale, Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Aamir Khan, Ajay Devgn, Akshay Kumar, Kajol, Rani Mukherjee, Shabana Azmi, Rakesh Roshan, Boney Kapoor, Anil Kapoor, Nusshratt Bharucha, Anupam Kher, Riteish Deshmukh, Dharmendra, Sunny Deol, Ashoke Pandit, Hansal Mehta, Poonam Dhillon, Jacqueline Fernandez and more.

Starting to wield the baton at the age of 19, Lahiri has bequeathed a rich musical legacy in Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Gujarati film and a variety of western-Indian fusion music for his millions of fans worldwide.