Death anniversary:

Mohammed Rafi - Versatile singer

Sumathipala SOLANGAARACHCHI

The thirtieth death anniversary of the great Indian singer Moh'd Rafi falls on July 31, 2010. This note is to mark the occasion and to pay tribute to Padma Sri Mohammed Rafi.

Moh'd Rafi was born on December 24, 1924, in a small village named Kotla Sultan Singh, in the district of Amritsar, in Punjab. Rafi's ancestors came from Lahore, the city which is now partitioned to Pakistan. Rafi's father Haaj Ali Mohammed and mother Allah Raakhi had ten children, seven boys and three girls whose youngest was Rafi. The eldest brother of Rafi Mohammed Hameed noticed the singing talent gifted to Rafi and determined to help his younger brother to improve the ability.

When Rafi was 12 years old he began to master North Indian (Hindustani) classical music under Barkhat Ali Khan (the elder brother of famous maestro Bade Gulaam Ali Khan), Khan Abdul Wahid Khan and Jeevan Lal Mittu. Meanwhile, Rafi used to spend his leisure at the barber shop run by Hameed in Lahore. The rumour that Rafi was a barber is completely false.

The lyricist Feroz Nissami introduced Rafi to Radio Lahore where he sang Ghazals when he was only 14. Rafi had the first opportunity to test his talent as a playback singer in the Punjabi film named 'Gul Baloch' on February 28, 1941. The first line of the song was Soniye ne heeriye teri yaad ne bahut sathaya which was a duet that sung with Zeenat Begam. Rafi's age was 16 years and 2 months at the time. Producer cum musician of the film Shyaam Sundar was highly impressed by Rafi's singing and he wanted to entrust Rafi singing in all his future productions.

Kundan Lal Saigal was the most appreciated male singer, at the time, eventually Rafi was a fan of Saigal and Rafi also had a dream to sing with Saigal some day. Before commencing a musical show of Saigal microphones were defective and the show delayed a while, until the apparatus being corrected. Rafi's brother Hameed pushed Rafi on to the stage to sing in the chance. It was the first public appearance of Rafi and he sang without microphones. The audience thoroughly enjoyed the singing of this young boy. Noticing the boy's talent Saigal said, "Son, you made the audience forgetting Saigal; someday you'll be a great singer."

In 1942 Rafi was taken to Mumbai (then Bombay) by Hameed with a recommendation letter from father of famous maestro Naushad Ali. Rafi sang Ghazals before this great master who was very fond of Urdu poetry. Naushad was very pleased and entrusted Rafi to sing in a chorus song of film Pehele Aap. Rafi was paid 50 rupees as the fee. Rafi has become a famous playback singer at his 20.

In 1944, when Rafi was 20, he married Noor Bano and she was honoured by the name Bilquis Rafi. They had seven children, four boys and three girls.

In 1944 Rafi sang for another Shyaam Sundar production Gaanv ki gori (Village Belle) with music of Sajjad Hussain. This film gained high public regards. Rafi songs were then often hummed by every youngster in India.

Rafi had opportunity to act in a couple of films. In 1947 films Jugnu and Samaaj ko badal daale were pictured with Rafi's appearance.

Rafi's next attempt in play back singing was a duet, Yahan badal wala ka bewafa ke siva sung with Noor Jahan, for film Jugnu. That was the only duet Rafi sang with Noor Jahan. It was 1946 when the film Shahjahan screened. This film was decorated with Naushad music. Rafi fulfilled his dream of singing with Saigal in this film. Singing the song Mere sapnon ki raani roohi by the two singers was pictured for the film itself.

In 1948 Rafi was the most wanted playback singer in the Indian cinema. The major breakthrough of Rafi was the song Suhani raat dhal chuki of film Dulari which has been given music by Naushad Ali and screened in 1949. Even Saigal, among other male singers, was spellbound on the rise of Rafi. When Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated, Rafi sang the song Suno suno ae duniyawalon Bapu ki ye amar kahaani written by Rajendra Krishna and given music by Husnlal-bhagatraam. This was a highly heartfelt song for Indians.

Any song with music of Naushad, with lyrics of Shakeel Badayuni and with the voice of Moh'd Rafi was a great hit. This trio, as a team, made some remarkable films like 'Shabaab', 'Dulari', 'Deedaar', 'Amar', 'Moghul-e-aasam', 'Kohinoor', 'Ganga Jamuna', 'Leader', 'Mere Mehboob', 'Palaaki, Aadmi' and 'Sangharsh'. Songs of those films are eternal beauties. When the 'Radio Ceylon' transmitted Hindi Commercial Service (Short Wave) for Indian listeners, thousands of requests from India flooded for Rafi songs, mainly over the program named 'Binaka Geet Maala'. Even now, every channel of All India Radio cannot forget Rafi, due to heavy public demand of Rafi songs.

Moh'd Rafi was gifted to sing full three octaves of musical notes very easily. Songs like Bhagwaan - O duniya ke rakhwaale, of Naushad music and in the film 'Baiju Bawra', bear testimony for this fact. That song is a classical one based on Rag Darbaari (King of Ragas) and rated to be the ultimate of Rafi's singing career. Rafi could sing any type of songs whether pop, rock, classical, kawwali, bhajan, ghazal, sad, romantic, fast or slow tempo. Every song he sand was sentimentally soulful as Rafi could get deep in to the mood that is expected of.

The Indian nightingale Lata Mangeshkar said any singer must learn from Rafi how to accord with the song one sings. Rafi changes his tone of voice, accent and pronunciation and add variations according to the mood and the action.

Rafi represented voices of Dilip Kumar, Dev Anand, Shammi Kapoor, Bharat Bhushan, Guru Dutt, Rajendra Kumar, Joy Mukherji, Dramendra, Raj Kumar, Sunil Dutt, Biswajit, Shashi Kapoor, Jonny Walker and some more leading actors. Rafi gave those actors a boost for their career. Thus became Rafi the most versatile singer ever born. Rafi also had a very melodious and deep masculine voice to suit any strong looking actor.

At the times when we have not seen even a photograph of Rafi, we imagined that Rafi could look like Sunil Dutt or Dharmendra, because of the strength of his voice. Although it is strong and deep, it is smooth, and Rafi can soften the voice where it concerns delicacy.

Moh'd Rafi was on top until 1970. At the time, Mukesh Chand Mathur and Talat Mehamud (King of Ghazal) were somewhat backwards, despite they were senior singers.

The voice of Manna Dey did not have sufficient demand in the decades of 60-70. Hemant Kumar, the musician and singer was retired from his singing career. Rafi was still busy.

In the first quarter of 70s, Rajesh Khanna, the great actor came into the field and the voice of Kishore Kumar was needed to back Rajesh. This is the time when Rafi lost his usual demand. Moh'd Rafi has sung nearly 5,000 songs during his 40 year long singing career. He has sung over 2,100 solos for films. For the films only, Rafi sang 1,884 duets with female singers, and 171 duets with male singers.

His chorus songs for films are counted to 271. Rafi's private Ghazals are 232 and private songs of other than Hindi are 92. Rafi has sung 112 songs for non-Hindi films. Rafi has sung his highest number of duets with Asha Bhonsle. The number is 794. He sang 440 duets with Lata Mangeshkar (that is the highest number of duets that Lata sang with a male singer), 147 with Geeta Dutt (nee Roy), 139 with Suman Kalyanpur, and 122 with Shamshad Begam.

Rafi sang in 12 different languages including Sindhi, Punjabi, Marathi, Bengali, Konkani, Gujarati, Assami, Oriya, Telugu, Kannada and English. Rafi also sang in some regional usages of Hindi like Awadhi, Bhojpuri, Chhattisgarhi, Rajasthani, and Marwari.

In 1965, Rafi was honoured with Padma Sri Award for the song Baharo phool barsao - mere mehboob aaya hai in the film Sooraj. He was six time winner of Filmfare awards for The Best Singer. In 1977, Rafi was honoured with the National Rajat Kamal Award for the song Kya hua tera waada of the film Hum kisi se kam nahin. The President Sanjeewa Reddi presented this award.

All those are concerning Moh'd Rafi's singing career. Rafi also was extraordinary as a human being . Rafi was a religious man. He did not follow any other's singing style and did not resist anybody followed himself. Rafi did not complain against anybody and kept his cool temper at every burden.

He encouraged every newcomer to the field and had no professional envy. His face was always decorated with a sweet smile.

Rafi neither drank alcohol nor smoked, despite this, he successfully sang many songs for intoxicated moods. He sang free of charge for the producers who could not afford. He charged one rupee as the nominal free for singing in the film Shabash Daddy of Kishore Kumar. To the people who came to the studio requesting aids for community services Rafi offered his remuneration envelope without even opening it. According to an opinion of Naushad, Rafi wanted to donate a dialysis machine for a hospital, but he did not have chance, as his life ended unexpectedly.

Ravi Sharma, the music director appreciates Rafi for giving chance to and encouraging Mahendra Kapoor, the new singer.

Kishore Kumar admits that Rafi is a better singer than himself. Kishore wanted Rafi to sing the song Nafrat ke duniya of the film Haathi mere saathi, as Rafi was the best. Lata Mangeshkar says Rafi is a well mannered gentleman and nobody can fill the absence of Rafi. Though the voice of Mukesh rather matched for Raj Kapoor, Rafi Kapoor, Rafi was given at least single song in the film produced under RK Films banner.

Moh'd Rafi's 1977 coming-back did not last long. He sang his final song (a duet) with Lata Mangeshkar two days before his departure.

Rafi's big heart stopped beating on the unfortunate day, July 31, 1980, when his life completed 55 years, 7 months and 7 days. Padma Sri Mohammed Rafi's golden voice and his soul remain with us eternally.