Manna Dey affronted 90 on May 1. The singing fable charcoal adolescent at affection and keeps alive with shows and performances. He promises Awning 15 annual on the buzz from Bengalooru, but gives us added than bisected an hour of artlessly aboveboard chat

We, however, activate on a apocryphal note, which the adept accompanist has apparently never delivered in foreground of a microphone in 3,500-plus recordings and hundreds of performances over 60 years.

For if asked how he feels about entering his 90th year on May 1, he thunders, "Listen, my age is not something I ambition to discuss! I will acknowledgment your questions if they are about me and not about my age. Age is just addition year gone by - a simple birthday. It agency nothing! I achievement that this annual is about music and the admirable time I accept had with so abounding admirable people! I accept formed for over 65 years now. If you accept done your appointment and are accommodating to altercate my career, I would adulation to acknowledgment your questions!"

But that's Manna Dey as he 's consistently been - a man who never minces words. As we are on a 'phone line, he by itself does not arouse our beforehand affairs from the 1991 recording for Nana Patekar's Prahaar, his endure cogent Hindi blur song, to an hour-plus annual at his Juhu bungalow in Mumbai and several added abate affairs .

"Hamari hi mutthi mein akash saara was a admirable number, the endure of so abounding for Laxmi-Pyare!" he recollects. "I bethink Nana Patekar getting afterwards me for canicule and insisting that alone I could sing that song. He even capital me to lip-sync it on screen! Of advance I flatly banned to be on awning an aswell said that my articulation wasn't what it acclimated to be and acclaim affronted him down! Again Laxmi (Laxmikant) alleged up and requested me to appear home and accept to the song."

Mannada requests me not to acknowledgment the few songs he was abiding to almanac afterwards that. But he clarifies that he is actual abundant accustomed with what is accident on the music foreground today. "Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy are accomplishing some nice songs. Anu Malik has aswell done some acceptable plan over the years. But otherwise, it is the complete that has bigger abundantly back our times. But that's added to the acclaim of the arrangers and accordingly with the packaging, right? We accept some accomplished instrumentalists today. But what's the use of such talent? Arrangements bare a acceptable agreement beggarly nothing! The lyrics too accept breakable so much."

What about the new claret in his own acreage - playback singing?

"I anticipate Sonu Niigaam is actual good, he is able with all the ability bare for a singer, is agog about accomplishing acceptable plan and puts his affection into singing and compassionate what he has to sing. Shreya Ghoshal is actual good. But I will ask you something: In our admirable country there is so abundant admirable music. Every accompaniment is affluent in music. But if you about-face on the television, do you get to accept to annihilation nice?"

So area does he anticipate the angst lies? "Look, music is dictated by the affectionate of films getting made, which is absitively by the filmmakers. It's a appeal and accumulation situation. A acceptable accompanist like Udit Narayan has few takers. Why do you anticipate a accompanist of the calibre of Kavita Krishnamurthi (Subramaniam) hardly records? It's a lie that it is because she is not based in Mumbai!"

We appeal Mannada to acknowledgment a academic query: If Rafi, Kishore, Mukesh and he had all been alive in today's scenario, would this abatement had happened, and how would they accept taken it? And the adept replies, "We would accept very, actual amply retreated!! Today our affectionate of singers are not needed. How could we accept articulate a mukhda with the chat Saala in it? We could never accept been a allotment of such indignities!"

Mannada's acclimatized affairs and adherence to plan has ensured that his anamnesis charcoal bluff than the accepted razor. Acknowledgment a composer, amateur or blur and he can bang off data as if the contest had happened just yesterday.

We go to the amount of his favourite composers. Having common that Shankar-Jaikishan and Laxmikant-Pyarelal are the composers he ante top (which is what he has fatigued in all our talks and has said on television even recently) he has mentioned R.D.Burman and Madan Mohan in added interviews. How does he accommodate this?

"It is asinine to analyze abundant composers, unless you are accustomed with agreeable intricacies," he says with appropriate punch. "Madan Mohan gave me few but such soulful songs, like Tum bin jeevan (Bawarchi) and Kaun aaya simple man ke dwaare (Dekh Kabira Roya), so I am accountable to him. Panchamda was so good. He deserves the absolute acclaim for the circuitous archetypal that was Ek chatur naar - the song was his abstraction from alpha to end, and Kishore and I just accomplished it to out best! See, it was beneath to do with the songs they alleged me for and added with the actuality that they never got their ante in their lifetimes. Laxmi-Pyare were composers who accept accustomed me some absurd songs appropriate from Tum gagan ke chandrama ho in Sati Savitri - what a song that was! - to Prahaar. As for Shankar-Jaikishan - I was afterpiece to Shankar - they were absolutely magical!"

He is not too taken in by my abandoning S-J application Mannada for several heroes, even the Rafi-centric or Mukesh-centric ones like Shammi Kapoor, Rajendra Kumar and Raj Kapoor. "Look, there were all abundant singers then! If a song bare my skills, I was alleged to sing it. It was S-J's affluence that they anticipation I was the appropriate accompanist for songs like Aaja sanam madhur chandni mein hum (Chori Chori), Lapak jhapak tu aa re badarwa (Boot Polish), Pyar hua ikraar kiya (Shree 420), Ae bhai zaraa dekh ke chalo (Mera Naam Joker), Sur na saje (Basant Bahar) or Jhanak jhanak tori baaje payaliya (Mere Huzoor) and for pitting me adjoin Pandit Bhimsen Joshi in Ketaki gulab juhi in Basant Bahar. That's it!"

S-J aswell apparent him to Raj Kapoor, and the fable goes into agitated approach as he speaks about the actor-filmmaker. "Rajsaab opened my horizons!" he says. "His way of conceiving a song was artlessly brilliant. The pains he took over a individual song forth with Shankar and Jaikishan was astounding. The way he allowable my songs like Ae bhai zaraa dekh ke chalo from Mera Naam Joker or Laaga chunari mein daag from Dil Hi To Hai was just unbelievable."

Since he has aloft the subject, we acknowledgment that every playback accompanist has a brace of favourite actors whom they feel added his songs and vocals best. Who were Mannada's favourites besides Raj Kapoor? "Mehmood acutely in so abounding songs," addendum the singer. "Balraj Sahni was admirable in Tu pyar ka sagar hai (Seema), Aye simple pyare watan (Kabuliwala) and even Tujhe suraj kahoon ya chanda (Ek Phool Do Mali). And I accept to acknowledgment Raaj Kumar for the way he agitated the classical Jhanak jhanak tori baaje in Simple Huzoor."

But admitting Manna Dey sang for every hero from Dev Anand to Mithun Chakraborty with actual few exceptions like Dilip Kumar and Rishi Kapoor, he was abundantly assort as a comedian's articulation or that of an old man. "Yes, I agree,"he says candidly. "I bethink getting actual affronted if I went to watch Parineeta and begin that Chali Radhe raani, which was such a big hit, was filmed on an 80-plus old man! My affection sank. Slowly, my fears were realised. But I accept no regrets. I came actuality afterwards acquirements classical music and in a way my aim was to sing classical numbers, which I got in abundance. I sang classical songs bigger than others, but anon came a time if I was alleged for every affectionate of song forth with Rafi. The blow were all abundant singers, but had their limitations. Rafi and I could sing everything, and he was such a gentleman. He was a bigger accompanist than me, and I will say this - that no one came even abutting to him! He adapted aggregate he got!"

Mention that Rafi had already told a scribe, "You accept to my songs. I accept alone to Manna Dey!" and he feels that it was Rafi's greatness. "We recorded so abounding songs calm appropriate till Laxmi-Pyare's Waqt Ki Deewar in 1981. We had a abundant compassionate and it was never about one-upmanship, " he recalls.

A analytical point: Why did a archaeologian like him almost sing for the classical music-oriented Naushad? "He had a agitating compassionate with Mohammed Rafi, that's why!" he thunders. "That's all right! Naushadsaab did accord me some actual acceptable songs in Palki, Shabab and Mother India. And actual few could bout Naushadsaab in classical songs, and he was such a perfectionist."

Manna Dey, for those who came in late, was clean-cut and mentored by his uncle, composer-singer K.C.Dey, who brought him to Mumbai afterwards he grew up in their collective ancestors in Kolkata. Prabodh Chandra Dey, the boy for whom K.C.Dey was additional father, abecedary and aggregate else, was aswell called "Manna" Dey by him. "He was aggregate to me. He gave me a breach in Tamanna in 1942. But my aboriginal blur to accomplish after-effects was Ram Rajya in 1943." About it was alone with Mashal (1950) that Manna Dey got his absolute breakthrough. "Badri Prasad, for whom I sang in Ram Rajya, was not a big star, Ashok Kumar in Mashal was!" sums up Manna Dey succinctly. "Rafi was on the arena and it was boxy to breach into tge big league."

Mashal brought him actual abutting to S.D.Burman, who afterwards was to analyze the abounding Manna Dey ambit from Chalti Ki Naam Gaadi's Baaju samjho ishare to Meri Soorat Teri Ankhen's Pooncho na kaise maine rain bitayee. "He was actual addicted of me. We knew anniversary added back he was acquirements from my uncle." Kalyanji-Anandji and Roshan were two added composers of whom the accompanist was actual fond. "Kalyanji-Anandji composed some admirable songs for me like Kasme vaade (Upkar), Yaari hai imaan (Zanjeer) and Nadiya chale (Safar). Roshan was a adept and gave me aces songs in Dil Hi To Hai, Dooj Ka Chand, Barsat Ki Raat and others and they were absolutely superb compositions."

Despite his classical inclinations, Mannada was actual addicted of Western music, and sang in his academy choirs. Did that advice in his Western numbers like Aao aberration karen (Bhoot Bungla), Jodi hamari (Aulad) and others? "It accept to have, because playback is about ascertainment and acquirements from alert as well. My wife Sulochana was aswell amenable for teaching me a lot of Western nuances, and you may be absorbed in alive that I acclimated those bigger credibility even in the way I rendered Aye simple pyare watan for Kabuliwala!"

Finally, we ask why he has articulate in so abounding languages but opened his annual in mother-tongue Bengali alone afterwards he fabricated it in Hindi films? "I came to Mumbai again because I did not wish to do what anybody was accomplishing in Kolkata. But again came a time if distributors would debris to blow a Bengali blur if it did not accept my song in it!"