Manna from heaven

I know it’s a clichéd headline, but what else can you say for the owner of a made-in-heaven voice? For me, the essence of Manna Dey is captured in his two songs that are linguistically, musically and emotionally poles apart but cover two ends of the melody spectrum he ruled for nearly 50 years.

The songs are Laga chunri mein daag and Coffee House er adda. The first is a masterly rendition of a classical-based playful number pulsating with energy that makes me go in a trance. The beautiful words penned by Sahir Ludhianvi is layered — naughty and philosophical at the same time.

At one level it is about a woman afraid of returning home with a stained chunri after a rendezvous with her lover. But at another level it says — “wo duniya mere babul ka ghar, ye duniya sasural” — and hence the stain on her chunri can also be compared to the worldly sins that stain one’s soul.

Sorry couldn’t help digressing there! But you only have to close your eyes and hear Manna unleash this torrential number now going berserk with the sargam and suddenly restraining with a tonal inflection bringing to life every poetic nuance of Sahir’s masterly woven lyrics.

And on the other end of Manna’s spectrum is the melancholic, pining-for-the-past melody Coffee House er adda. The song penned by Gauriprasanna Majumdar recounts the Coffee House days of seven friends, who sat over endless cups and cheap charminar cigarettes burning between their lips with dreams to make it big.

But life has taken a toll on them, DSouza is now dead, Amal is dying of cancer, Rama is in an insane asylum betrayed by his lover, Sujata is married to a rich man, Nikhilesh is in Paris and Moidul has gone back to Dhaka. The seventh friend is the unnamed narrator pining for the old carefree days of Coffee House.

There is not a time when I don’t get a lump in my throat listening to this song. The pain in his voice makes you die with DSouza, the guitarist of Grand Hotel, it makes you suffer as Amal, the failed poet, it makes you stare at nothingness like the insane Rama, the love less, failed actor.

I can imagine a concert tonight in heaven where Manna will join the already departed trio that made the famous quintet of Rafi, Mukesh, Kishore and Manna.

Manna in heaven, sing in peace.

PS: Uploading the two songs. Enjoy!