Colossus - Manna Dey!, Recent interview! Options

[SAJJAD]

Source: http://www.screenindia.com/fullstory.php?content_id=10431


Early this year, he won the Padma Bhushan. Late last month, he was conferred the prestigious Dinanath Mangeshkar award by the Mangeshkar family. On 1st May, Manna Dey, now settled in Bangalore, completed 85 years.

Reams - well, maybe not as many reams as many other singers -have been written about this singer nonpareil. Suffice to say, therefore, that a look at the accompanying Box should acquaint those who came in late about the basic essentials of this unique living legend, and singer and gentleman extraordinary.

Though his last significant recording was in 1990 for Nana Patekar’s Prahaar, I recollect him telling me fierily then, “ No, I have not quit. But I come from the old school. We belong to a time when singers were chosen on the basis of important criteria like songs, situations, characters and even the actor. I cannot sing for an Aamir Khan,can I?”

I recalled taking this very example and asking him, “But suppose you were needed for a song that was just up your vocal street and was to be filmed on Aamir, would you not sing it?” And the great man had replied, “But the voice quality would not match. No, no - we have had our peak days, so someone else has to take over. I believe in the dictum of nature that samay badaa balwaan hota hai.”

What Manna Dey thinks of the present scenario where any playback singer sings for any artiste regardless of voice quality is something I would love to quiz him on today. But in those days, he had waxed eloquent on the changes that had already taken place then.


“The scene has changed beyond recognition,” he had said. “I remember Dada (S.D.Burman) spending seven days over a single song, embellishing it, setting it, mooning over a madman over all aspects, like a note or a bar that did not quite jell. It was teamwork then, and we all wanted the best. Today it’s all fast, there is no time, and even less creativity.”

Always one to call a spade a spade, Manna Dey ridiculed the suggestion that the movement in the ’90s back towards Indian melody was a positive step. “I strongly feel that Western influences lead to a lot of newness and freshness. If creatively blended, the results can be spellbinding,” he told me. “Today all they are doing is taking one part of some Indian or foreign song and joining it to another part of another old song and calling it a new one!”

And the maestro had raised a clenched fist in the air and said, “Melody is KING! But it has to be created, not borrowed or copied!” As the singer of Western-oriented numbers as dazzlingly varied as ‘O meri maina...’(Pyar Kiye Jaa), ‘Aao twist karen...’(Bhoot Bungla) and ‘Dil ki girah khol do...’(Raat Aur Din), Manna Dey’s opinion is obviously worth its weight in gold.

And Manna Dey never minced words even about the young composers then. “How long can such composers remain creative if the same kind of stuff is expected from them? Give them a chance to do something different and be creative - and they can do wonders!” Today, Manna Dey has lots of generous praise for singers like Alka Yagnik, Kavita Subramaniam, Sunidhi Chauhan, Sonu Nigam and Udit Narayan as well. Sonu in particular cherishes the moment in a live show when Manna Dey met him backstage and told him, “You should have been around in our time to compete with us!”

Manna-da however concedes that he did not get a truly worthy song after “Hamari hi mutthi mein akash saara...’ from Prahaar. “There was nothing offered by the young music directors that only I could sing and not anybody,” he told me four years later. Since it was at this last significant recording that I met the singer for the very first time, I recall Laxmikant approving the third or fourth ’live take’ but Pyarelal cajoling him to do one more due to some compositional nuance. Said Pyarelal, “If it had been anyone else, I would not have insisted, but because it is you, can we do it again?” The singer smilingly obliged and asked the composer to set up things for another ’take’.

And as Pyarelal vanished inside the recording engineer’s chamber, Manna Dey told me, “I feel that Pyarelal should open a school of music for today’s music directors! He knows every single instrument in and out! I have such tremendous respect for that man that though he is much younger to me I sometimes feel like touching his feet!”

Manna Dey, like all truly great artistes, always tended to be objective about things. L-P as composers hardly had the kind of role for him that many other composers did. But I remember asking him which of the old-timers were his own favourites, and I can never forget his impassioned answer.

Said Manna-da, “Though all the old composers - Dada Burman, Roshan, Madan Mohan, Vasant Desai, Naushad, Salil-da, Jaidev, Kalyanji-Anandji and Pancham-da have been tremendous, I feel that no one has done such extensively-splendid work as Shankar Jaikishan and,though second to them, Laxmikant-Pyarelal. You just hear some of their work and sit back , awed, and think,kya kamaal kiya hai iss gaane mein! And S-J and L-P did that hundreds of times over!”

Of course, the S-J role in Manna Dey’s career has always been quantitatively significant and qualitatively magnificent. S-J comprehensively explored Manna Dey’s full range from Western to classical, exploited his voice in genres from devotional to comedy and made him sing, not once or twice, but repeatedly for heroes like Raj Kapoor, Shammi Kapoor, Sanjeev Kumar, Raaj Kumar, Feroz Khan and Bharat Bhushan.

But we were talking about Manna-da’s objectivity, and nothing highlighted it more than my asking him whether it was fate that was the reason why he never reached the No. 1 slot.

Vehemently, Manna Dey replied, “No, that was not the reason. You see, there was Mohammed Rafi - he was a far better singer than me. He was a complete singer! How many singers are there who can sing every kind of song? All other singers had a range, but Rafi and me - we sang everything! Music directors could be confident about us!”

That’s exactly what I meant, I told him, because he never reached where Rafi did.

In a voice of steel, Manna-da replied, ’Quite simply, Rafi-saab was a better singer than me, that’s why! When I say that, it is a plain and simple fact, and you must leave it at that!’

I persisted and asked him if it wasn’t true that he was the most highly-trained (in classical music) of all our playback singers. “I would not say that,” he replied thoughtfully. “Yes, I have learnt the science of music. Indian classical music is very rich. If you train classically, you can sing everything, anything. I have sung English songs right from my college days in Scottish Church College, Kolkata. I was also secretary of its Fine Arts Society. But singing anything well is also not easy! Expression,sur - they are very important.”

Revealing something not well known, Manna Dey said, “I was not taught how to sing. There should be the right atmosphere and surroundings for a gift within you to flower. I watched my uncle practicing 10-12 hours a day. Big names from all over the country would come to our house. Nobody had to teach me how to sing, or how to play instruments - they were all there in my house, the instruments and the environment.”

But talent needs nurturing, believes Manna Dey. “I would assist S.D.Burman, Anil Biswas and Khemchand Prakash. Later I would watch composers while a recording was going on - there was so much that I could pick up. Of course I do compose too. Composing is easy, but to make a success of it requires a lot of sincerity and finally a surrender to fate after a song is made!”

Manna Dey also added that playback singing was a different ball-game altogether. “You have to learn playback by yourself - by trying, trying and trying. The sur needed in playback comes from the classical training, but you have to keep the character in mind too.”
They don’t make them like Manna Dey any more.

MANNA DEY: a brief history
Born: Prabodh Chandra Dey in Kolkata.
Musical inspiration: His uncle, music director K.C.Dey
Debut: Vijay Bhatt’s Ram Rajya (1943) under the baton of Shankerrao Vyas.
Breakthrough: ‘Oopar gagan vishal...’(Mashal/S.D.Burman) in 1950.
Oldest artiste he has sung for: Ashok Kumar
Youngest artiste he sang for: Mithun Chakraborty
His five best associations: Raj Kapoor (Actor-Producer), Mehmood (Actor), Pran (Actor), Lata Mangeshkar (Co-singer), Shankar Jaikishan
Creme-de-la-creme:
1. Ae bhai zaraa dekh ke chalo/Mera Naam Joker
2. Ae mere pyare watan/Kabuliwala
3. Ae meri zohra zabeen/Waqt
4. Bhav bhanjana/Basant Bahar
5. Jodi hamari/Aulad
6. Kasmein vaade/Upkar
7. Na to karavaan ki talash/Barsaat Ki Raat
8. Nirbal se ladaai/Toofan Aur Diya
9. Oopar gagan vishal/Mashal
10. Parda uthe salaam ho jaaye/Dil Hi To Hai
11. Pooncho na kaise/Meri Soorat Teri Ankhen
12. Tu pyar ka sagar hai/Seema





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[unni]

Thanks, Sajjad-bhai for reproducing that interview.

The song from "PRAHAAR" would be "Hamaari hi mutthi mein aakaash sara". Since this is a 1991 release, would someone having it please PM it to me. Would be much obliged. thanks!