In 1944, he moved to Bombay, first singing in the chorus (for a mere 10 rupees) and then moving onto solo songs under the tutelage of legendary music director Naushad Ali. Mohammed Rafi was born in 1924 in Punjab, but his family moved to Lahore where he received formal music training from the Ustads, not without opposition from his strictly religious Muslim family. Mohammed Rafi sang over 7000 songs in several Indian as well as foreign languages.
As we mark his 40th death anniversary today, we pay tribute to an artiste who sang over 7000 songs in several Indian as well as foreign languages and has inspired many singers including south Indian greats such as Yesudas and SP Balasubrahmanyam. The fine nuances of Rafi’s repertoire have dominated many conversations across time and space. It is hard to put in words the joyful discoveries of Rafi singing in Maithili, Bhojpuri, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu or Punjabi. Such is the love and adulation for the legendary Rafi sa’ab, who during his lifetime, delivered live performances in West Indies, Fiji, US, UK, East Africa and other parts of the world, apart from his incredible playback songs. A Ugandan-Indian colleague reminisces about Rafi and Lata’s incredible duet Jo wada kiya and a new Facebook friend from Trinidad often shares Rafi’s songs. Suhani raat dhal chuki still remains a favourite among some Sri Lankan friends, and an Iranian student breaks into Aye mohabbat zindabad every now and then. When Rajendra Kumar serenaded Asha Parekh with Husn wale, tera jawab nahin, my flatmates wanted to know if the ‘handsome’ actor was still alive and even though they could not grasp Hindi so well, they were in love with the voice of Mohammed Rafi. In 2004 while on a visit to Israel, I shared an apartment in Tel Aviv, with two young Jewish women from New York who watched Bollywood films on the Bombay channel, every evening. Since 2004, I started travelling out of India and have met many people of Indian origin, besides Africans and other Asians, who have been listening to Mohammed Rafi for at least three generations now. Growing up with Mohammed Rafi songs was the norm for my generation, although Kishore-RD mania had reached a crescendo in the 70s.
Jmarks Mohammed Rafi’s 40 death anniversary.
0 kommentar(er)
