PART 2: MOHAMMED RAFI & THE NINETEEN FORTIES.

A Humble Tribute to the Greatest Playback Singer of all times – by Nasir.



Let’s now have some glimpses of the Mohammed Rafi’s pilgrim progress that began in Nineteen Forties amidst a multitude of talents and competitions and went on to establish a lasting memory of his name and fame well up to the next century.



Haji Mohammed Ali was the native of Kotla Sultanpur (or Kotla Sultan Singh), a village near Amritsar, India.  Pheeko, the youngest of his six sons, was born on 24 December, 1924.  The names of his other sons were: Mohammed Shafi, Mohammed Deen, Mohammed Ismail, Mohammed Ibrahim, Mohammed Siddique, and daughters - Chiragh Bibi and Reshma Bibi.  As a seven-year child, Pheeko used to listen to the songs and hymns of a faqir who frequented his locality and neighbourhood. Destiny was at work here. So much enchanted was he by those hymns, that he began to sing them and thus showing his great musical inclination. 

Now, there used to be lot of vehicular traffic between Amritsar and Lahore those days, undivided as they were by any of the rivers of the Punjab. Fortunately for Pheeko, in 1935, his father shifted to Lahore, then a great centre for Punjabi culture, educational institution, music and film industry. Lahore had become a centre for the aspiring actors, singers, writers, poets, lyricists, producers and directors. Prithvi Theatre was established here by Prithviraj Kapoor while Dalsukh M. Pancholi had the largest studio in south-east Asia. He made many famous movies at Lahore before he ruefully left for Mumbai during the Partition of India in 1947.   As for Rafi, the boys and the girls of his age in the Mohalla used to follow him,  requesting him to sing. So at a very young age itself,  the sun of fame began to shine on him.   It was at Lahore that Pheeko, who was to earn his name and fame as Mohammed Rafi, got his Hindustani classical music training from Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan and his younger brother, and from the towering figure of the Kirana Gharana, Ustad Abdul Wahid Khan (d.1949). He also took music lessons from Feroze Nizami and Pandit Jeevanlal Matto Kashmiri in Lahore.

These music lessons and the classical music training stood him good stead when he was asked to give his first public performance in Lahore. The legendary K.L. Saigal had come to Lahore to sing in a concert that was held to felicitate King George VI’s coronation in Britain in May 1937.  

As is well known, there was a power outage and K.L.Saigal refused to sing on the failed microphone. At this time, since the audience was getting impatient, the organisers,  at the request of Rafi’s elder brother Hamid, put Rafi on the stage to entertain the crowd till electricity was restored. Rafi had by then stepped into his thirteenth year barely five months before. But he was in his elements and such was his confidence that with his sweet but powerful voice he was able to reach the far corners of the open auditorium, regaling his listeners who were clamouring for more. The legendary Saigal Saab was impressed by the potentials of this young lad.  According to Rafi Sahaab, it was here at the concert that the great Saigal Saab blessed him saying,

“A day would come when you would be a much sought-after singer.”

Thus Saigal Saab has been seen by some critics as “Ruhaani Ustaad”, or Spiritual Mentor of Mohammed Rafi. Indeed, he had passed on the keys of the kingdom to him. Saigal Saab had his style of singing; Rafi would evolve his own, and by November 1977 alone, he would sing some 25,000-26,000 songs.

Rafi’s musical training continued under Ustad Abdul Waheed Khan. This was the time that the singing spree of Rafi began. By the time he was 15, he would often be invited to sing at his friends’ places. According to one account, on one such occasion, he was spotted by Nasir Khan, a film Producer-Actor, who offered to take him to Mumbai to groom him as a singer in films. It was only with great reluctance and prodded by Abdul Hamid, that the head of the household agreed. Saigal Saab’s blessing was realized earlier than thought.

On 28th February  1941, Rafi was to record a Punjabi song for his first movie, Gul Baloch, under the musical direction of Shyam Sunder who had heard the young prodigy sing in that K.L. Saigal concert. The Gul Baloch song, GORIYE NEE, HEERIYE NEE, TERI YAAD NE AAN SATAYAA...was a duet which Rafi sang with Zeenat Begum who had herself made her singing debut in a Punjabi movie, MANGTI, which was released in 1942. So much impressed was Shyam Sunder that he gave an invitation to young Rafi to come down to see him at Mumbai. Most sources say that the release of Gul Baloch was delayed and it finally came to be released on in 1944.  Some unconfirmed reports even attribute Rafi’s debut under the musical direction of Pandit Govindram for the blockbuster Platinum-Jubilee hit, MANGTI.  This has not been corroborated by Rafi Sahaab when he was asked about his debut song. According to him, his Mumbai debut was in 1942, in the Nazir-Swarnlata starrer, Laila Majnu, where he did a bit role and also sang a qawaali as part of the chorus under Pandit Govindram. Whatever that may be, both Shyam Sunder and Pandit Govindram utilized Rafi Sahaab around the same time. Laila Majnu was released much later in 1945.

Otherwise, too, 1942 was an important year not only for the Indian political Quit India Movement, but for the world at large. The sneak attack on the Pearl Harbour in December 1941 had now drawn the U.S. into the arena of World War II. Japan was growing stronger so much so that it came right upto Burma which bordered India. During the years 1930-1941,  the number of Burmese films was 600 and this number dwindled considerably. After the Japanese invasion of 1942, half a million Indian fled on foot. Thousands died on their way to India via Assam.

Film production was hit owing to the shortage of raw materials and conservation. Gone were the hay-days of Bombay Talkies, Prabhat, and New Theatres as many artistes sought their own independence. There was a formation of independent studios such as the Filmistan, Kardar Studios, Rajkamal Kalamandir, and Basant Pictures. Mehboob Productions came out with the banner of a sickle and a hammer, and the ominous lines: MUDDAI LAAKH BURAA CHAAHE TOH KYAA HOTAA HAI, WOHEE HOTAA HAI JO MANZOOR-E-KHUDAA HOTAA HAI.

C. Ramchandra made his debut in Sukhi Jivan. Baby Mumtaz (Madhubala) made her debut in Basant, lip-synching a Parul Ghosh number. Manna Dey sang for the first time under his uncle, K.C. Dey’s baton in Tamanna, including a duet, JAAGO AAYEE USHA, with Baby Suraiya who had found an actress’s opening in Taj Mahal (1941). Her song in Sharda, as well as the songs of Kanan Devi (TOOFAAN MAIL..) in Jawab, Noor Jahan’s under Ghulam Haider in Pancholi’s famous movie, Khandan were the rage of their days. In Zamindar, Qamar Jalalabadi penned his first film lyrics which was sung by Shamshad Begum for Ghulam Haider. Akhtari Faizabadi (Begum Akhtar) sang six songs under Anil Biswas in Mehboob Khan’s Roti. All these songs were very popular. Suraiya was lucky to have the music directors who enhanced her singing career: Naushad, Husnlal-Bhagatram, Khursheed Anwar; plus the stalwarts such as Anil Biswas, Ghulam Mohammed, S.D. Burman and some others.

After the Japanese occupation of Burma in 1942, the year 1943 saw a horrendous, but largely man-made, famine in Bengal where more than 3.5 million people died. The dying destitutes, scouring for rotten remains in trash-cans, were removed to the rural Bengal so that the cities such as Calcutta and Dacca might look clean. Not to speak of the massive sexual abuse of starving women and young girls by the civilians and the military that could put even the Japanese exploitation of the “comfort women” to shame.

In the film annals, 1943 is remembered for the blockbuster movie, Kismet, starring Ashok Kumar and Mumtaz Shanti. Kismet ran for more than three years continually at the Roxy Theatre in Calcutta. This record would only be broken by Sholay (1975) and Sholay’s record would be broken by Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jaayenge (1995). Anil Biswas’s music and all the songs of Amirbai, Arun Kumar, Parul Ghosh in Kismet were superhit and are still unforgotten. Amirbai had become a rage reaching her peak in 1947. The song: DUUR HATO AY DUNYAA WAALON HINDUSTAN HAMARAA HAI had almost got the film banned by the British Government.

Sohrab Modi of the Pukar (1939) and Sikandar (1941) fame was not as successful in Prithvi Vallabh.  A 14-year old Fatimah Rashid (Nargis) was groomed as the heroine of Mehboob Khan’s Taqdir, opposite hero Motilal by Sardar Akhtar. Shakuntala was another blockbuster film of the year and the heroine Jayshree sang her own song. Incidentally, this was the first movie of V. Shantaram’s own studio. There are also more firsts: Ghulam Mohammed made his debut in Mera Khwaab. Similarly, Najma was the first film of Mehboob Khan under Mehboob Productions. Mahasati Anusuya was the first musical venture of Avinash Vyas. Some other popular songs of the time were by Ram Apte and Madhusudhan (Ram Rajya), Khursheed and Saigal (Tansen), G.M. Durrani (Nai Kahani), Parul Ghosh (Namaste), Raj Kumari (Nurse), Kanan Devi (Hospital), Shamshad Begum (Poonji) and Suraiya (Qanoon). Manna Dey’s song in Ram Rajya made him famous.

There,  in Lahore, not knowing what the future will have in store for him, a lad had by this time transformed into a handsome but humble youth of charming manners, and was much more mellifluous and knowledgeable in the field of music and singing. He was Mohammed Rafi! While still in his teens, Rafi got married to the thirteen-year-old Bashira but this marriage was short-lived as she did not choose to settle down with Rafi in India but chose to remain in Lahore after the Partition.  By this time, a son was born to Bashira and named Saeed.   By March 1943, thanks to Feroze Nizami who was himself a competent vocalist of the Kirana Gharana, the young Rafi began singing on the Lahore’s All India Radio which was the fifth in the country and a home for Shamshad Begum, Zeenat Begum, “Fateh Din” (Actor Om Prakash) and other worthies since 1937.  Kaur sisters were to follow a little later. This radio station had become a local even as far as Amritsar.  As for Abdul Hamid, a good brother (not the real brother) that he was, he knocked on every door to ensure that work kept coming to his little brother Mohammed Rafi.  It can be said that he was his Man Friday most of his life until the time he migrated to Canada sometimes in late Nineteen Seventies.

Continued in 3. ....

NASIR