For someone whose singing career spanned over five decades, legendary playback singer Manna Dey comes across as the epitome of modesty.

When asked whether the Padma Bhushan had been bestowed on him a tad too late, the 84-year-old Dey smiles and says, "at least it came. I am satisfied".

Dey, who received the coveted award this year for his lifelong contribution to music, has had a successful innings in the annals of Bollywood but says he isn't likely to return to tinsel town soon.

"This is no age for playback singing. I can't sing for a 24-year-old hero. But if a song is made well, I don't mind singing for a character artist," says Dey.

At the same time, the adage 'once a singer, always a singer' holds true for him.

"My singing career was quite colourful. I have sung for all artistes - whether hero, villain or comedian," says Dey, "I can't stop singing. I was born to sing and I will do so as long as I live".

Not many know that Manna Dey was initially groomed to be a music-director.

By the time he finished his graduation from Calcutta university in the pre-independence era, Dey was already assisting music directors like Chandraprakash and Anil Biswas and seemed destined to follow in their footsteps.

But lady luck intervened and a song that Dey sang for the film Ram Rajya changed everybody's opinion about his vocation.

"They all said I was better off as a singer. Who knows? May be they just didn't want me as a rival music composer," Dey says.

There was no looking back after that. Although he never quite got the kind of success that contemporaries Mohammad Rafi and later Kishore Kumar achieved, Manna Dey went on to record several unforgettable numbers.

Notable among them are evergreen melodies like kaun aaya mere man ke dware, aayo kahan se ghanshyam, tu pyar ka sagar hai and aye mere pyare watan. And who could forget the ek chatur naar duet with Kishore in Padosan?

Characteristically, Dey is effusive in his praise of playback singer Mohammed Rafi.

"Rafi, Lata and Asha are my favourite singers. I think of Rafi as the top singer (sic) in the world. He was a gift of god just like Lata Mangeshkar.

No one can learn to sing like them," he says.

But the octogenarian singer is scathing in his criticism of the current generation of music composers.

"All the maestros have gone. Only Naushad is still there. And the younger generation does not know how to make music," he says.

Dey also feels that composing music today is a trifle compared to the hours of rehearsals required earlier.

"Nowadays, music is computer-generated. Even if the singer goes out of tune, you can easily bring it up to the mark with the help of machines," he says.