Until then I had no formal musical education. K.C Dey never married, so I became the son he never had, and he was instrumental in helping me realize my dreams as long as I was willing to make the necessary sacrifices. My father wasn’t too pleased with my choice, but I got tremendous support from my uncle and started learning from him. When I finished my undergrad studies, there were two choices before me, to study law or music. Still it was made very clear to me by my father and my eldest uncle, who was an engineer and the self appointed decision maker for every one in the family, that I had to finish my education first and preferably do law.
We lived in a joint family and still do, in the same house where my father, uncle and I were born.
Other than that I don’t really come from a family of musicians, though several legendary musicians like Allauddin Khan Sahib, Inayat Khan, the late Vilayat Khan’s father and many other maestros visited our house, since they were my uncle’s contemporaries. Uncle in turn imparted that knowledge to my late brother and me, but he made it very clear that to deserve that kind of musical education, we had to desire and work for it. A benefactor took him under his wing because he thought my uncle was a musical genius, which he was, and made him learn at the feet of great ustads. Dey, but until he became blind at the age of 13 and turned to music to support himself no one in the family was musically inclined. In my formative years I was surrounded by music because of my uncle, the famous singer K.C. What are the early memories of growing up and music? In an exclusive interview with Little India, the elegantly clad Dey talks about a life filled with music, his journey as a singer and composer and why in spite of the consensus he never received his due as a singer, he takes it all in his stride with humor and humility. At 84, he is fit as a fiddle, and recently sang for four hours to raise funds for the Robin Raina Foundation in Atlanta, a charity to aid under privileged children worldwide, because he deeply believes in the cause. While you come across clones of other legendary singers in the present day world of vocal music, Manna Dey remains as original and incomparable through the years.
He is perhaps the last of the living legends among male singers, gifted with a unique voice no one has managed to ape till now.