Sivaji Ganesan’s ‘Maina Meat’ For Lata Mangeshkar

This was happened long back when Sivaji Ganesan was in hay days of his career as a hero. Lata Mangeshkar was also on the top and she has got credited as Nightingale of Bollywood by then. Once she was invited by Sivaji Ganesan for a lunch at his house. No knowing that Lata was a vegetarian, Sivaji got cooked some non-vegetarian items. Lata said that she was vegetarian and took only that. But out of curiosity she asked pointing out a dish “What is that item?” Sivaji said, “It’s a maina. It’s specially cooked for you. But alas! You are vegetarian”.

Then Lata replied, “How could you kill a natural singer to feed a professional singer?”

That touched Sivaji’s heart and from then he banned cooking maina, his favorite food from then. Maina is a singing bird like a nightingale.