He was born with a svar on his tongue - Prabodh Chandra Dey, Calcutta, May 1, 1919. The world would call him Manna later. His mother's pet name became a nation's.

In the old house in Calcutta, music didn't enter through the door, it lived in the walls. His uncle, Krishna Chandra Dey - a blind magician for he saw through sound - taught him the first truths: practice is prayer, and precision its only God.

When the boy followed his guru-uncle to Bombay, the city smelled of celluloid and sea. He began not at the microphone but behind it, assisting KC Dey, then SD Burman, sweeping floors of studios that would one day echo his own voice.

When he sang his first film song, for Tamanna, the world did not notice; it rarely does when greatness whispers. Soon, under the tutelage of Ustads Dabir Kha

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