Nirmala Mishra said Carribean humming gave her song "emon ekta jhinuk khuje pelam na".

Nirmala Mishra.

Nirmala Mishra said Carribean humming gave her song “emon ekta jhinuk khuje pelam na”.

Eminent singer Nirmala Mishra gave an exclusive interview in Anandabazar Patrika on 16th October, 2011. At an age of 73 years she talked about many unknown facts.

She disclosed that her father Mohinimohan Mishra was Pandit, Sangeet Ratna and Sangeet Nayak. He went to Benaras to get those degrees in music. Nirmala Mishra’s second brother who was also a great talented singer was given poison and did not survive, otherwise would have been a great singer.

She was very mischievous during childhood, that was the reason she was called “jhamela”. She got typhoid 6 times, for that reason her eyesight was affected. Everyone prescribed her to sing light songs, but her father was upset as he was an eminent classical singer. Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan had many times given her medicine for voice.


Eminent singer Dhananjoy Bhattacharya had helped her in her initial days of career. When composer Nochiketa Ghosh composed a song and asked her whether she could do Carribean humming, she said yes. Nochiketa Ghosh thought about Lata Mangeshkar for the song. But she did the humming, and got the song “emon ekta jhinuk khuje pellam na”. It became super hit. In the same way she got the song “o tota pakhire” from the brilliant composer Prabir Mojumdar.

She was called by superstar Uttam Kumar a number of times in his own house whenever Supriya Debi cooked a delicacy of prawns. She was asked to sing songs many times. She talked about her husband also who wrote the song “ami je tomar chirodiner hasi kannar saathi” which was later recorded and became a big hit.

Nirmala Mishra said that just as Lata Mangeshkar was called the melody queen of Mumbai, Sandhya Mukherjee the melody queen of Kolkata, similarly she was considered the melody queen of Orissa. She had sung many Oriya songs and majority of them had become hits.

Dev Anand is busy with his film Charge Sheet.

Dev Anand is busy with his film Charge Sheet.

Evergreen star Dev Anand had recently given an interview to journalist Gautam Bhattacharya which had been published in Anandabazar Patrika on 25th June, 2011.

He had said that he had been busy working with his new film Charge Sheet. He had crossed 88 years and still showed the enthusiasm to work on the sequel of the film Hare Rama Hare Krishna, which he made in 1971.

When he was asked about Raj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar, he said, if Raj Kapoor would have taken care of his health he would have survived for more time and made more films. Dilip Kumar was happy to be an actor and never showed the interest of directing films. Dev Anand missed his team of performers like Vijay Anand, Kishore Kumar, Sachin Dev Burman, but he said that death was also a reality which people should face.

He also said that he never looked back at his work, and whenever his hit films like Hum Dono, or Guide are shown in TV Channels, he hardly had seen them. About the new generation of actors, he had stated that he hated body building and opening of shirts to show the body. He said Raj Kapoor or Dilip Kumar, or he himself never required to open their shirt to show their body. He did not comment about the question why Rajesh Khanna faded out of the industry after ruling bollywood for short time, while Amitabh Bacchan ruled bollywood for a longer time.

In respect of maintaining his health, he replied that he never smoked, nor drunk, he never ate spicy food. That was the secret of his fitness. Whenever the lift failed, he still could climb upper floor on stairs, whenever his car failed, he could board a taxi.

He wanted to work till his last day of life and that was a great message he gave to every section of the society. The new generation should learn from Dev Anand, how to be fit.