Manna Dey was born Prabodh Chandra Dey in 1919, the year imprinted in our collective memory for Jallianwala Bagh. In the golden age of Indian melody, he was the fourth in a brilliant quartet with Mohammad Rafi, Kishore Kumar and Mukesh. To that extent, he was denied the fame a genius like him deserved. I won’t call him the Cinderella of Indian melody. I’d rather take the liberty of mixing cricket with music and compare his fate with that of S. Venkataraghavan, the fourth in a fantastic spin quartet, after Prasanna, Bedi and Chandrasekhar.
Of the four virtuoso male singers, Manna Dey, or Manna-da as he was called, was the only one I had the good fortune of meeting, and interviewing. It was 2004, on a boat on the Hooghly, and he was 85 then. You can watch that entire Walk the Talk here and listen to him sing his favourite lines. These are the favourite lines for many of you also, I am sure.
Manna Dey sang more than 4,000 songs in Hindi. It’s impossible to list his best definitively. I can only list some of my favourites. These aren’t in chronological order. You can, of course add yours:
A haunting melody
Kasme waade, pyaar wafaa sab, baatein hain baaton ka kya, from the 1967 Manoj Kumar super-hit Upkar, it has haunted three generations. It was, incidentally, the first song solely picturised on Pran, the quintessential villain with his VAT 69 and roving eye, and marked his new turn as a good guy.
Remarkable range
Our second choice, Yaari hai imaan mera, yaar meri zindagi, was also sung for good guy Pran, six years later, in Zanjeer, which established Amitabh Bachchan’s angry young man avatar.
Padosan is among our funniest films ever and this competitive jugalbandi between Manna Dey and Kishore Kumar is its high point. Featuring Kishore himself, Sunil Dutt, and the inimitable Mehmood.
The Raj Kapoor greats
Aa ja sanam madhur chandni mein hum, Yeh raat bheegi bheegi, Jahan main jaati hoon wahin chalte aate ho, Pyar hua iqrar hua hai, Chalat musafir moh liya re, and Ae bhai, zara dekh ke chalo we bunch together, because these were sung for Raj Kapoor somewhat uncharacteristically, given his lifelong commitment to Mukesh. The first three are from Chori Chori, the fourth from Shri 420, the fifth from Teesri Kasam, the last from Mera Naam Joker. Each is a classic, and unforgettable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIkFW78x6UA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1DZxkiMjRo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y43qOiyLS3k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXLzfldeDcM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_dI4mXlxNg
The Balraj Sahni gems
The next bunch is for another genius, Balraj Sahni. First up, Aye mere pyaare watan from Kabuliwala. Listen to this father’s yearning for his home and daughter, and it will moisten your eyes:
No. 11 is Aye meri zohra jabeen, tujhe maloom nahin from Waqt, the 1965 blockbuster. No wedding in the north is still complete without it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsGi81kMcho
And no. 12, Tu pyaar ka sagar hai, teri ek boond ke pyaase hum from Seema, 1955.
A tribute to friendship
If Ek chatur naar was a competitive jugalbandi, for the evergreen Sholay, Manna-da sang with Kishore Kumar the most celebrated tribute to buddy-ship in Indian cinema history: Yeh dosti hum nahin todenge for Dharmendra and Amitabh Bachchan. This is our no. 13.
The Raj Kumar classics
The next two in our list were sung for another unique genius, Raj Kumar. First, Dukh bhare din beete re bhaiyya in Mother India
and the pucca classic Jhanak jhanak tori baaje payaliya for 1968 hit Mere Huzoor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qpIQygF-VQ
The stuff of legend
On the topic of pucca classics, we recall three more: Tere naina talaash karein jise (theme song from Talaash)
Aayo kahan se ghanshyam (for Om Prakash, Buddha Mil Gaya, 1971)
and Laaga chunari mein daag, chhupaun kaise (Dil Hi Toh Hai, 1963)
An evergreen bhajan
Our next is Shaam dhale Jamuna kinaare (Pushpanjali, 1970)
A versatile genius
There are countless others, of course, sung for every major star of the period. And much versatility. There is Aao twist karein from Bhoot Bungla (1965)
and my favourite martial music song of all times, sung beautifully to pipes and drums, from Dev Anand’s 1970 Prem Pujari: Taaqat watan ki hum se hai, izzat watan ki hum se hai, insaan ke hum rakhwale (with Rafi).
And is there a better one to conclude this list of memorables but Zindagi, kaisi hai paheli haye…? You can never tell if it is happy or sad. Except that the film was the all-time classic Anand, and marked the rise of Rajesh Khanna and Amitabh Bachchan as great new acting talents.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hw46YMgFmBY
Also read: On his birthday, a humble attempt at introducing K.L. Saigal to millennials
I don’t entirely agree with Sharad. He was equally good at simple numbers also, which Shankar Jaikishan and to some extent R D Burman exploited with reasonable success. I don’t understand how he could be dumped after the success of Chori Chori and Sree 420. He was for sure the most underrated singer in Bollywood. Even Shankar of SJ commented about him at the fag end of his career , “We have wasted him”. That speaks for itself.
The greatest compilation of Manna Dey is incomplete without the songs he sang for The great Anil Biswas.
I don’t entirely agree with Sharad. He was equally good at simple numbers also, which Shankar Jaikishan and to some extent R D Burman exploited with reasonable success. I don’t understand how he could be dumped after the success of Chori Chori and Sree 420. He was for sure the most underrated singer in Bollywood. Even Shankar of SJ commented about him at the fag end of his career , “We have wasted him”. That speaks for itself.
Of course sir, he sang simple songs too. One popular song of his on karaoke circuits is “zindagi kaisi hai paheli..”. Still Manna Dey leaves his trademark voice modulations in the song. I think we are both agreeing that Manna Dey was a singer par excellence who never got his due.
Manna Dey remains one of the most difficult singers to replicate in Karaoke circuits. His modulation of voice when he says “duniyawale” or “maa ka dil ban kar kabhi” will croak most voices. That is perhaps one reason why he never reached the top because most drunken party singers, bathroom singers and karaoke champs would shy away from singing his songs, for they would get stuck on the rubab modulation of “kabhi” in “ae mere pyare watan” song. Hindi film industry also found it difficult to find a hero who could render his songs convincingly on the screen, therefore many of his classical greats were picturised on comedians singing in tattered clothes and making funny (intended to be) face expressions to render his classical voice modulation.
You have forgotten Bhay Bhanjana, Sur Na Saje, Ketaki Gulab Juhi, Upar Gagan Vishal and his many great classical songs. He sang songs in almost all languages, Panjabi, Gujarati, Marathi, Assamese, Malayalam, Bhojpuri, Oriya, Nepali and others. He was top Bengali singer for many many years. His Bangla songs are a revelation. He was a better singer than all others, they were filmi singers, but he was a Complete singer. He could sing anything from tough classical raga based songs to light comedy songs, he sang ghazals also. His romantic songs are still heard on the radio. He used to daily riyaaz for 2-3 hours that is why he could give lot of performances even after crossing the age of 90. unfortunately he never got his due. Neither this article has done justice to him.