A musical escape

High GDP growth figures and quarterly results are certainly the best music to his ears. But Pranab Mukherjee – finance minister and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s busiest colleague – also tunes into music every night to escape stress. No wonder, when Railways Minister Mamata Banerjee recently came to meet her Pranabda, she gifted him a boxed CD set of Rabindrasangeet, apart from a box of sweets. Before Mukherjee takes his dinner (around 1 am), he listens to at least two-three songs. After dinner, he again asks his cook Padam to play some music (Mukherjee can’t operate a CD player). In fact, he asks his aides to ensure that the inserted CD contains enough songs to put him to sleep and doesn’t stop midway. “I only listen to Rabindrasangeet. Nothing else suits me,” says the Finance Minister.