Prabodh Chandra Dey better known by his nickname 'Manna Dey', is a playback singer in Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Malayalam, Kanada, Assamese films. Along with Md Rafi, Kishore Kumar, Mukesh he was a part of Indian film playback music industry. He sang all types of songs from Pop to folk. He has recorded more than 3500 songs over the course of his career. The Government of India honoured him with the Padma Shri 1971, the Padma Bhushan in 2005 and the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 2007. Dey was born to Purna Chandra (father) and Mahamaya Dey (mother) on 1 May 1919. Besides his parents, his youngest paternal uncle Sangeetacharya, KCDey highly inspired and influenced him. Dey received his early education in a small pre-primary school named Indu Babur Pathshala. Thereafter he attended Scottish Church Collegiate School and Scottish Church College followed by Vidyasagar College where he received his graduate education. During Dey's years at college, he sang to entertain his classmates. Dey stood first for three consecutive years in three different categories of inter-collegiate singing competitions. In 1942, Dey accompanied KC Dey on a visit to Bombay. There he started working as an assistant, first under KCDey, and then under SDBurman. While he working independently as a music director for various Hindi movies, he continued to take musical lessons in Hindustani classical music from Ustad Aman Ali Khan and Ustad Abdul Rahman Khan. Dey started his career in playback singing <b>…</b>
