MOHAMMED RAFI - THE LAST DECADE...8...

TRIBUTE TO THE GREAT INDIAN SINGER MOHAMMED RAFI.
The Last Decade- Rising of the Phoenix.

A Humble Tribute by Nasir Ali: 

Continued...8...


Coming back to our main discourse, the mid-seventies saw some changes in the equation of the playback scene in Bollywood which also had its hand in indirectly affecting Rafi Sahaab and the repercussions of which can be heard even today. One such factor was the rift between Asha Bhonsle and O.P. Nayyar. It was O.P. Nayyar who had really launched Asha Bhonsle to the exclusion of Lata Mangeshkar whose clout was tremendous during all that period. Asha left OP and hitched on to the bandwagon of R.D. Burman. Later, OP and Asha Bhonsle parted company for good. How bitter that parting was can be seen from the fact that some two years later she even refused to accept the Filmfare Award for her CHAYN SE HAMM KO KABHI AAP NE JEENE NA DIYA which OP had composed for her in Pran Jaye Par Vachan Na Jaye (1974). Though O.P. accepted that award, so much heart-broken was he that on his way home he threw it out of his car. This beautiful composition had been picturized on Rekha but it appears that Asha and Lata used their clout behind-the scene to have it dropped from the film altogether. That bitterness was never forgotten by her even as she married R.D. Burman in 1980.

The saddest thing about the fall-out of the Asha-OP relationship was that even those beautiful Rafi-Asha duets that she sang earlier in the Fifties and the Sixties under the baton of the music director seems to have been forgotten by her:

Phagun, (MAIN SOYA ANKHIYAAN MEECHE and EK PARDESI MERA DIL LE GAYA),
C.I.D. (LEKE PEHLA PEHLA PYAAR),
Tumsa Nahin Dekha (SAR PAR TOPI LAL and DEKH QASAM SE),
Naya Daur (MAANG KE SAATH TUMHAARA MAINE, UDEN JAB JAB ZULFEIN TERI and SAATHI HAATH BADHAANA),
Ek Musafir Ek Hasina (AAP YUNHI AGAR HAMM SE MILTE RAHEIN and BAHUT SHUKRIYA),
Phir Wohi Dil Laya Hoon (NAZNEEN BADA RANGEEN HAI WAADA TERA),
Kashmir Ki Kali (ISHAARON ISHAARON MEIN DIL LENE WAALE and DEEWAANA HUA BAADAL),
Mere Sanam (ROKA KAI BAAR MAINE),
Yeh Raat Phir Na Aayegi (PHIR MILOGE KABHI and AAP SE MAINE MERI JAAN MUHABBAT KI HAI),
Bahaaren Phir Bhi Aayengi (DIL TOH PEHL SE HI MADHOSH) among others.

And all along we thought that Asha Bhonsle cherished her duet songs with Rafi Sahaab.....

Though both Rafi Sahaab and Asha Bhonsle carried on singing duets for the remaining part of the Seventies right up to 1980, (according to some estimate they sang about 800 songs together), yet it appears that Asha Bhonsle has negated the excellence of Rafi Sahaab as the greatest male playback singer in Bollywood by certain utterances. Of course every one has the right to one's opinion. So the other day in the Eighties at a concert at Chicago when Asha Bhonsle stated that Suresh Wadkar was as good as Rafi, this was not taken kindly by the knowledgeable audience some of whom were totally shocked. We need to hear what Suresh Wadkar himself stated about Rafi Sahaab:
"I think that no other singer could bring out the sweetness and 'Masti' of every word, incredibly fitting his voice to every hero and yet be in such perfect 'Sur' that every note was well-rounded and a complete experience in itself."

It is otherwise too abundantly clear that Asha Bhonsle preferred Kishore Kumar to Rafi Sahaab. In a recent live telecast of the RKB show in August 2007 she expresedly stated that Lata Mangeshkar and Kishore Kumar were "gods" for her. Clarifying that she might even be resented for saying so she went on to say that she listened to only Lata and Kishore Kumar and none else when it came to filmy music.

It must be remembered that Rafi Sahaab came to the dominate the playback scene at the time when Talat Mehmood, Mukesh, Manna Dey, Hemant Kumar, C. Ramchandra, Kishore Kumar and even his protégé, Mahendra Kapoor were at the peak of their singing voice. But those singers got type-cast in their own genre whereas Rafi Sahaab could sing in all their genres and more: Talat's ghazals, Manna Deys's classical, Mukesh's sad songs, Kishore's light compositions, Hemant's philosophical songs and so on. The Mangeshkar sisters had no competiton. Also, the maximum beneficiary of Rafi-Lata feud was none other than Asha Bhonsle though some like Suman Kalyanpur, did get the crumbs that fell from the table of the said feud.
Next, the Seventies saw commercial interests of the music industry coming to the fore and making promotions of their best bet at that time which happened to be the axis of RDB-KK-RK. As we know, with the rise of R.D. Burman and his preference for Kishore Kumar over Rafi in the early Seventies and with Asha Bhonsle already joining the team right from early seventies after ditching O.P. Nayyar, and with the "Phenomenon" Rajesh Khanna to boot, the way for eliminating Rafi Sahaab was all the more clear - though it just didn't happen. Giving winds to the fire was the role of the media and the sudden emergence of an unknown small town called Jhumri Talaiya into public memory. This town gained notoriety for the maximum number of "questionable" requests for the non-Rafi songs in programmes such as Man Chaahe Geet: "Jhumjri Talaiyya se chunnu munnu aur unke mummy papa likhte hain ki..." The requests were in such profusion that it looked that the said town might have had the population of the cities such as Bombay and Calcutta. Yes, the age of manipulation had started. Formerely the AAP KI FARMAISH or such other requests used to be genuine. The Binaca Geet Mala too had lost it lustre at least for some of their listeners who could never under why some songs were given a step-motherly treatment despite their huge popularity and appeal. The less said - the better. We would not be looking to the emerging political scene as the matter is too sensitive but would be touching only on the "Emergency" of 1975 later.

Here we have to rewind to the old case of Anil Biswas who haughtily believed that any singer could sing what Rafi Sahaab sang. In other words, he had turned a blind eye to the sterling qualities of Rafi Sahaab as an unparalleled singer. When this was brought up before Manna Dey he admitted that there was no one to touch Rafi Sahaab. In fact he recalled an incident where his uncle K.C. Dey who was a visually-challenged musician and singer of the Thirties-Forties actually preferred Rafi Sahaab to Manna Dey for a song in a movie called Justice. Admitting that he had accepted the superiority of Rafi Sahaab over himself, Manna Dey stated that the way Rafi Sahaab gave expressions to his songs was simply outstanding. In his memoirs ("Memories Come Alive") he says of Mohammad Rafi Sahaab:

"Rafi's renditions were like an early spring morning with its varied hues and shades and appealed to me immensely."

The pertinence of the above paragraph is that even in the late Nineties when Anil Biswas presided as a Judge in a musical competition called SA RE GA MA which is still telecast on TV channels but with an addition of the note “PA” now, the competitors used to be apprehensive about singing Rafi Sahaab’s numbers lest that would rub Anil Da on the wrong side. In other words, in one form or the other conspiracy against Rafi Sahaab existed even after more than a decade of his passing away. How we wished that Anil Biswas had heard the song of K.C. Dey: "BABA MANN KI AANKHEN KHOL."

Someone of the lot of the new playback singers has asserted that Rafi Sahaab had adapted the style of method of G.M. Durrani. Another back-stabbing Rafi Sahaab, this! Now it is common knowledge that Mukesh as well as Kishore Kumar were inspired by Kundan Lal Saigal in their earlier days of playback singing. Mukesh's DIL JALTAHAI TAU JALNE DE is a classic example in point. (But it was the young Rafi who had had the honour and pleasure of singing with the former legend, K.L. Saigal, in the chorus - the last two lines : RUHI RUHI RUHI MERE SAPNON KI RANI where he can also be spotted in the group.) This affords a ground to those who imitate Kishore Kumar or Mukesh to justify their cloning. It is also very well known that those who imitated Rafi Sahaab were able to carve a niche for themselves in the film industry as well. Not that G.M. Durrani was not a good singer but then there is a difference between the word “good” and “excellent.” So whoever came out with that comparison had done so as self-aggrandizement in order to assert his own importance and justification of imitation - but at the cost of Rafi Sahaab’s original style.

When we look at the songs of Rafi Sahaab and G.M. Durrani especially the one that sounds somewhat similar in tune for better appreciation, such as G.M. Durrani’s (sung with Lata) GAYE CHALA JAA (Humlog) Rafi Sahaab’s QADAM BADHAAYE JAA NA DAR (Bada Bhai), we easily realise that Rafi Sahaab’s is a powerhouse of rendition. Or in their duet together…. HAMM KO HANSTE DEKH ZAMAANA JALTA HAI (Hum Sab Chor Hain) the styles are distinctly different. In fact as early as early as the mid-forties the Queen of Melody, Noor Jahan, had rightly sensed the superiority of Rafi Sahaab over G.M. Durrani and got the latter replaced for the evergreen Jugnu (1946) duet: YAHAAN BADLA WAFA KA. If someone were to point out the numbers almost rendered in bass by Rafi Sahaab such as HAAY RE DUNIYA (Zeenat -1945) or TERA KHILONA TOOTA BAALAK (Anmol Ghadi – 1946) the answer is that those were the days of low octave and music directors hardly bothered to break that fetter (This is discussed in our first post on Fifties. It was only when Rafi Sahaab was available that the music directors were assured that they could come up with any type of compositions. Then, even in the 1951 golden jubilee hit, Deedar, G.M. Durrani’s number: HAMARA NAAM BHI LIKH DO MOHABBAT KARNE WAALON MEIN.. sounds so different in rendition, style, voice and timbre from Rafi Sahaab’s songs in the same movie (MERI KAHAANI BHOOLNE WAALE or HUWE HAMM JINKE LIYE BARBAAD, etc). So the difference is stark. The similarity? As between the chalk and the cheese! In fact, G.M. Durrani "never really was a front runner as a playback singer except for a brief while before his more gifted colleagues made their presence felt," says Manna Dey. Consequently, it can be very safely and uncontrovertibly asserted that Rafi Sahaab copied no one even in his salad days but forged the stamp of his own individual style of singing.

Even in the 21st Century Rafi Sahaab is being avoided by the new composers who have invented their own fusion style of music. Oh! Pausing here for a moment, this sentence makes it appear as if Rafi Sahaab is still living. But he does seem very much alive! Otherwise, why did Sonu Nigam admit that Rafi Sahaab's name is a taboo in the recording studios. Why? It appears that the standards set up by Rafi Sahaab is beyond the reach of many aspiring singers today even after his 26th death anniversary. Some, like Abhijeet, are waiting for an R.D. Burman and a suitable voice on the screen. Therefore, one can imagine how it must have been in the early Seventies for Rafi Sahaab when seeds of conspiracy were sown for ignoring him. It has to be remembered that even when a diamond falls to the ground it still remains a diamond and that even when the dust rises to the sky it is still the dust. In short, Rafi Sahaab survived the decade with all the glory of the rising phoenix.


Let's now turn to the so-called "Emergency," that was clamped on India by the Indira Gandhi Government, suspending the Fundamental Rights of the citizens. 


To continue...


NASIR.