Sonia mourns Manna Dey's death as the loss of a genius

Congress President Sonia Gandhi Thursday expressed deep anguish over the death of legendary singer Manna Dey, saying India has lost a genius. She said that in the passing away of Dey, the nation has lost a veteran playback singer, a versatile artist of extraordinary ability, and a creative genius who mesmerised listeners with his enchanting voice. [caption id=“attachment_1192091” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  PTI[/caption] Gandhi added that Dey would always be remembered and will continue to enthral music lovers forever. Dey, enthralled Indian music lovers for five decades with all-time hits like ‘Ay mere pyara watan’, ’laaga chunri me daag’ and ‘poocho na kaise’, died at a hospital in Bangalore Thursday at the age of 94 after a prolonged illness. Dey, who was in and out of Narayana Hrudayalaya hospital in the last five months for respiratory and renal problems, died of cardiac arrest at 3.50 am. His daughter Shumita Deb and his son-in-law Jnanranjan Deb were by his side. His wife Sulochana died in January last year. Along with Rafi, Mukesh, and Kishore Kumar, Dey was the last surviving member of the famous quartet of singers who dominated the Hindi music industry from the 1950s to the 1970s. Born in Kolkata in 1919, Dey went on to sing over 3,500 songs in Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Malayalam, Kannada and Assamese films before quitting movies in the ’90s. His last song was ‘Hamari hi mutthi mein’ for 1991 film ‘Prahaar’. PTI