Manna Dey is Still Relevant!
When you have your roots in Bengal, people kind of ascertain that you share a deep bond with literature and music. Truth to be told, Shakespeare, Rabindranath Tagore and Mahasweta Devi are very much a part of every Bengali household. And so are Manna Dey, Subinoy Roy and Shyamal Mitra.
Hailing from an english medium background, many a times our knowledge has been underestimated both in Bengali literature and songs. If I am being brutally honest, that might be true to some extent, but not fully. I would rather say that listening to our traditional songs have actually helped shape a major part of my personality.
Though I have had a penchant for both Shyamal Mitra and Manna Dey, the latter seems to have carved a special place in my heart. Maybe it is due to the fact I was specifically drawn to his classic ‘Jodi Kagoje Lekho Naam’ during my college days, when I was literally on cloud 99, and swimming among romantic clouds. Though that connection was severed soon, but it continued with Manna Dey.
While writing this piece, I tuned into Manna Dey’s masterpiece ‘Coffee House er Shei Adda ta Aaj Ar Nei!’ The song really transcends and makes us nostalgic, and so very relevant with our lives. I still recall our small tete-a-tetes post University days at Coffee House. That impeccable infrastructure, those white unique uniforms of the stewards, those high rise tables, those intellectual conversations, all seemed to be so perfect then.
Visiting Coffee House would mean a stroll around College Street undoubtedly, and kind of getting lost in the aroma of books. I would often mull into the scent of old books and freshly printed long notebooks, that would often be sold in kilos... We would walk back from College Street to Sealdah station, only to experience the variety of books, and getting swayed by it. Our discussions would encircle around poets, our university lectures, and our dissertation, that used to be a big fat book we had to make in our final year of university.
Those days, we didn’t have Netflix, neither had the craze for sitting over bear. Just plain tea and toast would do. And, we would sit there for hours, glancing at each other, and debating
over politics.
It’s all so very different now. I am running to meet deadlines, others are equally striving to stay relevant. Guess, Manna Dey was so right in predicting how our future would shape. He was so apt and right then, as he is relevant now!
Image courtesy: Wikipedia
