Book Review: 'Memories Come Alive' Manna Dey

Manojendu Choudhury

2 June 2007, 04:20

Every singer, or any creative artist for that matter, normally create a niche for themselves in a particular genre, style, language and become a master within their boundary of the niche. Manna Dey has created such a niche for himself, and if you have to use one word to define the niche, it is perfection.

He has transcended the barriers of language, region, style, genre and is not for nothing bestowed the title of National Singer by the Government of India. His extremely popular numbers cover more than half a dozen languages spanning (nearly) all the styles of Indian music viz. North Indian classical, light classical, folk music, western pop style, Rabindra-sangeet, love ballads, devotional offerings, and of course the quintessential Bollywood stuff, to name a few.

His popularity stems from the fact that he rendered an authenticity in all his musical productions that strikes a chord with the people. He is a master of the traditional school of music and yet keeps on experimenting with newer styles and setting new trends and is a live-wire performer on stage even at this ripe age of eighty eight, while his latest album was released last year.

Being a veritable trendsetter, it was not surprising to see him launch his autobiography in English published by Penguin India, albeit translated from the original Bengali bySarbani Putatunda , in a society where none of his peers, the great doyens of Indian popular music, have ever tried to enter the literary market. Hence, it was with great anticipation that I ripped the package to lay my hands on the new offering from the man whose name is synonymous with melodious overtures.

The book has a nice structure; the path through the memory lanes is introduced as the writer’s dreams in a sleepless night. As it happens in dreams, small snippets fly by without following a strict chronological order but creating a nostalgic picture of the early childhood and its diverse experiences including those of volatile upheavals in the period of political movement fighting for independence from the British rule.

The narrative is chiefly, and expectedly, anecdotal, creating a picture of not just the the man and the household but also giving a glimpse of the external influence of the world order and how it goes on to shape the innards of a sensitive character. Thereafter, the writer wakes up in the morning and recounts his early youth and struggles of an upcoming artist, the flow of narrative becoming more chronologically ordered.

As the day is lived out in the present, the writer again starts recounting the influences of his life, the women (not many!), the peers, the seniors, his general evolution as a musician and singer, and the often obssesive reactions of his myriads of fans. The juxtaposition of his one present day (which happens to be his birthday) and the whole of the past weaves a very nostalgic net to trap the reader in the singer’s life. As the day slowly comes to an end, the writer becomes contemplative about the path he has taken in his life and what he is leaving for the posterity. This contrasts nicely with the beginning when he was nostalgic about the influences that shaped his being at the beginning of his life.

The mood of the book is conversational, as if the great singer is talking to the reader with his own direct, no nonsense approach towards life. He is not burdened by any covert sense of humility, he is overtly candid about his ability as a singer as well as his strong ideologies that shape his life but is sincerely generous in his admiration of his peers as well as seniors, is extremely reverential towards his guru, his uncle, K.C. Dey, and is genuinely overwhelmed by the love lavished on him by his legions of fans.

In fact, the conversational mood very clearly illustrates the character of his relationships with the various people who touched his life. He is unpretentious when he is expressing his scornful disapproval of various things, be it a certain type of old traditional rendition of classical music as it was done in the first half of the last century, or the current fashion of rendering Rabindra-sangeet, or any insolent behaviour of some of his ‘supposed’ fans or some uncaring organisers of concerts, among others.

But he is equally unequivocal in his praise for the artists and their creations which incorporate new innovations, or the lovers of music who have touched his heart. As the reader reaches the conclusion of his recount of life, one does get an insight into the way the man perceives the world.

The anecdotal style of recounting memories is mostly well handled. The build up from his childhood to the early struggles of a newcomer in a fiercely competitive field is well documented. The inspiration provided by his guru cum mentor, K.C. Dey, is poignantly recalled with absolute love and devotion. His initial success story as a singer is given in sufficient detail, but thereafter the reading becomes banal to an extent.

The long stretch of his most productive period in life has been handled in an hastened manner and the portion reads like a bulletized summary of his songs, while the descriptions of his association with colleagues of the music industry reads like an extended acknowledgement. Perhaps this was done to limit the length of the book, but the lack of details, except for his association with S.D. Burman and Pulak Bandopadhyay, results in the expressions becoming a bit repetitive.

Perhaps I, the reviewer, expected more details about what went behind the creation of at least a few of the masterpieces, the emotional tug of war between the various people involved when creating a song, the burst of creative urge that the artist goes through when in the zone, and some glimpse into the machinations of the music industry of which he has been an integral part for so long: it is not that these are non-existent, but one could have dedicated more pages to this end.

Here, the lack of chronological order is also a bit confusing, and one needs to refer to the catalogue of songs in the appendix to get a clearer picture of the progression of the singer’s career. Another area in which the book could have been improved upon is the reproduction of the photographs, both in terms of quality and quantity. But overall, this book is indeed a commendable effort and frames the life of this great singer between two covers, covering a journey from naughty innocent pranks to a continuous reverie weighing the credits and debits of a life well lived.

The translation is worth a praise or two; given the style of expression in the Bengali language a direct word to word translation would appear to be stilted as well as sentimental or text-bookish, which it does in a few places, but that is the contrasting nature of the two languages which have evolved separately and have been influenced by different ways of living.

The English would have sounded different had it been written originally in that language by a westerner, and perhaps the English speaking public need to acclimatize to this style of writing to get the Indian flavour of expression in English, else that particular flavour will be lost. The translation does justice to retain this flavour of Bengali expression without losing a grip on the supposed sentimentality.

The appendix of the book contains the most comprehensive list of songs sung by Manna Dey, in the various languages. Although it is not exhaustive or complete, as many of the three and a half thousand songs have been lost, but still this appendix makes the book an essential in a connoisseur’s library. And last but not the least, the book arrived with a CD (supposedly accompanying a limited edition of the book) comprising of Manna Day’s most popular numbers from Hindi movies, and it is evident that care has been taken to highlight the versatility of this maestro as all the songs fall under different moods and styles. Despite possessing a vast collection of his music, this particular compilation is definitely a worthwhile addition to my music library.

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