Feature of the Month

 

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NOVEMBER 2003     Musical   Musings - The Manna Dey-SD Saga

FEBRUARY 2004      Suraiya and Sachinda - Yeh kisne jaadu daala

AUGUST 2004
The Day I Met SD Burman - Pradeep Singhi  

OCTOBER 2004
Lota Didi and Burman Dada - Extract from Lata's biography (by Raju Bharatan

 

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Manna Dey-Sachin Dev Saga

Tadatmya Vaishnav  (Dec ember  2003)

The piece on the Manna Dey-S.D.Burman relationship in the 'Feature of the Month' section of your site is very intriguing indeed. Really, this is the first time ever that I have heard the inner (real?) feelings of Manna Dey in having to play second fiddle to Rafi in the playback singing arena. He has always been so gracious about his 'rivalry' with Rafi that it never crossed my mind that some injustice was inevitably done to him. 

							

							The piece begins with an anecdote that gives 
									an idea of a close personal relationship between the two masters. But soon, 
									bitterness shows itself in Manna Dey's words about the episode where, after 
									several rehearsals, he is bluntly asked to 'guide Rafi' to sing the song, and 
									that he had already told Rafi about this. For a singer of Manna Dey's calibre, 
									this is surely an insult, and his bitterness on this score is, in my opinion, 
									very justified. Why might SDB not have gone directly to Rafi? Was he less 
									comfortable than Manna Dey was with Rafi? That's very puzzling. On SDB's side, 
									one can argue that his relationship with Manna Dey was so close and informal 
									that he did not imagine that his action would upset Manna Dey. This is one of 
									the problems that crop up when the dividing line between a personal and a 
									professional relationship is very thin, or not clear.
									

							
 Again, I feel Manna Dey carries the 
									bitterness too far when he says,   "Sachin da was a great 
									composer but nothing compared to Shankar Jaikishan, I mean Shankar not 
									Jaikishan". 
							

							
Shankar surely was an excellent tunesmith and 
										gave Manna Dey extremely memorable songs, but this statement takes things too 
										far. What, in my view, clinches Manna Dey's opinion in favour of S-J as 
										favourites is that they gave him romantic duets, something Manna Dey wanted to 
										sing a lot, but hardly ever found. And even though RDB gave him many songs, 
										they seem very less memorable to me (or memorable on a different plane) than 
										those of SDB. The examples cited in the piece are enough to show this up.
										

							

							Thanks for an eye-opening article. 
									
									

							-  Tadatmya. 
							

							 
							

						
					
 

					
      

					
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