HYDERABAD: Aye meri zohra zabeen…, Aaja sanam madhur chandni mein hum…, Yeh raat bheegi bheegi, yeh mast fizayen…… For over six decades, Manna Dey has given us numbers that refuse to die out, including the evergreen Laga Chunri Mein Daag.
Be it marriage celebrations, antakshari or any get together that includes music, it is difficult to ignore Manna Dey songs.
Change in musical scene from your time I would not like to draw any comparisons. Everything has to change with time and we have to accept it the way it changes. I have also changed. I am no longer the young man that I was earlier. You have to go by times.
Films today Yesteryears were devoted for good thinking. They used to make the script and see that the song that they are using actually fits the script. But today, hathoda maar ke song fit karte hai (they fit the songs in the script by force.) You cannot do that. Even in terms of the way these songs are filmed is not right. For example, I have great regards for Amitabh Bachchan, but in the song Kajra Re, the way he started dancing, I was surprised. The song is so beautiful, but the way all three of them danced was just wrong. How can you forget your culture and heritage? Friends in the industry I feel sorry to say that I have outlived all my friends in the industry. I feel I am lonely having lost all my good friends and contemporaries. In fact, only Mukesh was my contemporary. Rafi, Hemant, Talat, Kishore, they all came in later and yet I am the only one alive.
Singing in various languages I love singing in various languages. I write the song in Bengali script and then I make sure I get the correct diction. I can very proudly say that I have done more than enough justice to all the songs that have been given to me, irrespective of its language. For example, I had to sing this one Malyali song madhuram nulli for Salil (Chowdhary).
Salil is a little lax in these matters so while rehearsing, I did not know that my diction was wrong. But after they went, my daughter came up to me and said, ‘daddy whatever you did right now was rubbish.’ So then my wife, who is a Malyali, she coached me and the next day, the song came out to be perfect. Today, there is no single Malyali household that does not play that song.
About Urdu learning I was taught Urdu by my blind uncle. I can speak Urdu as fluently as any other Urdu speaker because I learnt the language while writing it. My uncle was a great person and the best friend I had. It was only because of him that I am here today.
College life College life was eventless, other than little flings here and there. I was good at studies and was very much interested in English Literature. Actually my singing started from college. My friends told my principal about my singing abilities and the principal asked me to participate in inter-collegiate competition.
I knew my uncle would never allow and so the principal wrote a letter to my uncle, who finally agreed and trained me for the competition. For three consecutive years, I stood first. I was eventually gifted a silver tanpura and the inter-collegiate committee banned me from participating. That was a very big reward that I got.
Once a wrestler Yes I did get into wrestling earlier, thanks to my friend’s father. He was wrestler and looking at my body, he thought I could do in wrestling. I had a very nice body in my youth days. But wrestling for me was more like a physical exercise than anything else.
radhika@expressbuzz.com