RMIM Archive Article "37".
From the RMIM Article Archive maintained by Satish Subramanian
#
# RMIM Archives..
# Subject: Rafiana.
#
# Posted by: Satish Subramanian (subraman@cs.umn.edu)
# Source: Illustrated Weekly of India (1993)
# Author: Raju Bharatan
#
Here is an article written by Raju Bharatan on Rafi's 13th an-
niversary, for the Illustrated Weekly of India. This article
talks about how Rafi, regardless of the money involved, helped
many a small time composer by agreeing to sing for them.
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satish
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RAFIana
by
Raju Bharatan
for The Illustrated Weekly of India, Aug 93
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"Not one anniversary article on Mohd. Rafi pointedly touched on
his contribution to the welfare of the small-time composer. Raju
Bharatan looks beyond big names to pick some gems from Rafi's
humble repertoire".
Raju Bharatan writes:
Could you believe that end-July signalled full 13 luckless years
without the charismatic voice of Mohd. Rafi? I, for one, couldn't
believe it, if only because I discerned that it was during these
very 13 tuneless years that Rafi had grown more dominant in our
vocal imaginations. Whether it be TV or radio, his vocals have
been even more vibrant in the years he has been away from us.
Shabbir KUmar, Anwar, Mohd. Aziz, their performing stature dimin-
ishes with every year that passes without Rafi.
So unique is Rafi's vocal mystique that he is always throwing up
new areas, for example, not one anniversary article on Rafi
touched on how this big-hearted tenor *made* small-time com-
posers. It is this lacuna we now seek to fill in a resonant reply
of some Rafi's all-time hits for the lesser-known music direc-
tors. The idea is to spotlight Rafi's role in keeping the
small-time composer professionally alive.
Remember an obscure 1953 C-grade film called "Khoj" for which
music was scored by Nissar Baazmi, the man who later went to Pak-
istan and became such a big composer there that even Noorjehan
and Mehdi Hassan considered it an honour to sing for him. Yet so
long as Nissar Baazmi was in India, he somehow remained a C-grade
composer. And at the time he did "Khoj", he was literally a no-
body.
This was when Baazmi approached Rafi to sing for the maximum Rs
50 that his producer could afford for the rendition of a composi-
tion on which he prided himself. And Rafi charged Baazmi just the
token Re 1 to produce for him, in Khoj, the memorable Radio
Ceylon hit, "Chanda ka dil toot gaya roney lage hain sitaare".
This Raja Mehdi Ali Khan lyric began with the cry: "Mohabbat aur
wafaa kis tarah tauheen ki tu ne". What a compelling sense of
expression Rafi brought to this tune of a struggling composer!
Nor was Pandit Shivram a big-time composer when Rafi (this time
for Rs 50) obliged him with an all-time hit that made its way
from Radio Ceylon to the Binaca Geetmala. It was written by
Bharat Vyas (for a shoestring-budget starrer of Nirupa Roy, Karan
Dewan and Bhagwan) and it became, in Rafi's orotund voice, the
surprise hit of the year 1955. My reference is to the "Oonchi
Haveli" Rafi chartbuster: "Daulat ke jhoote nashe main ho choor
garibon ki duniyan se rehte ho door". Who but Rafi could have
scaled such a vocal peak from the pit-class for which "Oonchi
Haveli" was made? To this day, "Daulat ke jhoote nashe main ho
choor" remains the biggest hit given by Pandit Shivram.
S. Mohinder may not exactly have been a C-grade composer, but the
fact remains that he rarely worked in A-grade set-ups. Ranjit's
"Papi", starring Nargis and Raj Kapoor, was one of those rare
films in which S. Mohinder had the support of a hit star-team.
But the problem was that, but the time "Papi" came in 1953,
Mukesh was 'settled' as the voice of Raj Kapoor. Even so Sardar
Mohinder made bold to opt for Rafi for Raj! And that too in the
climax of Papi!
Only, by the time the climax of "Papi" came to be reached, the
film had already been dismissed by the audience as a visual
disaster. Yet the same audience which, I remember, had virtually
gone to sleep in Delhi's Regal Cinema came to sudden life and be-
gan tapping its feet to the Rafi rhythm of "Tera kaam hai jalna
parwaane chahe shama jale ya na jale".
That audience clearly felt that Rafi was made for Raj Kapoor. Who
knows, Rafi, given the chance, might have been good on Raj Kapoor
too! Come Dilip Kumar, come Raj Kapoor, come Dev Anand, Rafi was
a vocal match for any hero, big or small.
The hero of "Mirza Ghalib" was Bharat Bhooshan, the hero in Dev-
das was Dilip Kumar. And both heroes in both films had plumped
for the soft vocals of Talat Mahmood. Rafi therefore had only one
'atmospheric' song each in these two films. Yet, even in these
two films in which Talat dominated so sentimentally, Rafi left
his own distinct individual impact - under Ghulam Mohammad with
"Hai has ki har ek unke ishare mein nishaan aur" (Mirza Ghalib),
under Dada Burman with "Manzil ki chaah mein" (Devdas). Neither
Talat, nor Mukesh, nor Kishore, nor Hemant, nor even Manna Dey,
could ever take Rafi for granted. "I might have been better
trained classically by my uncle K. C. Dey," Manna once told me,
"but if Rafi was singing in the same film as I was, I never could
be sure he wouldn't overtake me."
The same Manna Dey had given of his best to the hapless composer,
Babul, in "Reshmi Roomal", through "Zulfon ki ghata lekar saawan
ki pari aaye" (with Asha) and "Aankh mein shokhi lab pe tabassum"
(with Suman). In the same "Reshmi Roomal", Babul had made a tel-
ling impression with Talat, too, through "Jab chhaye kabhi saawan
ki ghata". Therefore, since Mukesh too had scored in the same
"Reshmi Roomal" through "Gardish mein ho taare", there was no
reason for Babul to switch to Rafi when he came to scoring "Naqli
Nawaab" on the same Manoj Kumar. Yet Babul did switch to Rafi.
And somewhere at the back of his mind, Rafi must have known that,
in Babul's recording room, the competition was with Talat, Mukesh
and Manna Dey alike. Therefore regardless of the fact that he
was now being paid only Rs 200 for each song in "Naqli Nawab",
Rafi came up, for Babul, with such heart-stealers as "Tum
poochhte ho ishq bala hai ke nahin hai" and "Allah jaane maula
jaane".
Nor was Rafi's best reserved for just Babul, who had broken away
from the team of Bipin-Babul. Rafi produced for Bipin (Datta)
too, in "Yeh Bambai Hai" the N53097 two sided hit: "Yeh bambai
shehar ka bada naam hai".
Likewise, G.S. Kohli never rose above the B-grade film. Yet,
given the aid of Rafi's vocals, Kohli was able to come up, in
"Lambe Haath", with an all-time hit, for our super-patriotic
Vividh Bharathi, in the form of "Pyaar ki raah dikha duniya ko".
The message in this "Lambe Haath" hit, "Tum mein hi koyi Gautam
honga tum mein hi koyi Gandhi", remains distinctly RAFIan.
G. S. Kohli was at least a name that appeared on the banner of
half a dozen films. But Dulal Sen, you saw his name on the banner
of only one film: "Black Prince". Yet even in that one film, what
depth of feeling Rafi brought to the rendition of Dulal Sen's
"Nigahen na phero chale haayenge hum", as put over by Rafi for
Dulal Sen in "Black Prince", that lingers in Radio Ceylon memory.
It was Shivkumar Saroj, the sensitive Radio Ceylon announcer, who
drew our attention first to the tuning artistry of another modest
composer: C Arjun. When I met C Arjun much later, he told me
that he felt very proud that he had at least created a ghazal
that could come somewhere near a Madan Mohan composition. "I
wanted special attention to this my coveted ghazal from my singer
but all good singers available were bigger than the film for
which I had composed it!" revealed Arjun. "It was with great
hesitation, therefore, that I approached Rafi Saab to render my
ghazal, so feelingly written by Indivar. And Rafi Saab, without
bothering about the small payment we were in a position to make,
said it was one of the best ghazals that had fallen to his lot
and he would give it everything that he had."
Rafi certainly gave that C Arjun ghazal everything he had, that
is how it came over to us "Paas baitho tabiyat behal jaayegi maut
bhi aa gayi to hal jaayegi" in "Punarmilan".
This ghazal proves, if proof is needed, that no composer was too
small for Rafi as long as the composition was great. After all,
who were Lala-Asad-Sattar but three instrumentalists who had
turned music directors. Yet for even such a stunt trio trying to
combine as a music director team, Rafi proved a salvation with
such a surpassingly lovely solo in Sangram as: "Main to tere ha-
seen khayalon mein kho gaya".
To help every little composer trying to gain a toe-hold in the
quicksands of filmdom was Rafi's singing philosophy. Sapan-
Jagmohan, as a duo, got their break in Sadashiv Row Kavi's "Be-
gaana", with Suprita Chowdhury. It was Sapan-Jagmohan's first
film and the two had to show spot results to make headway.
Jagmohan (of this team) had sung 10 years earlier, in Kishore
Sahu's "Hamlet", the hit duet with Rafi: "Ghir ghir aaye badarvaa
re kaare". On the strength of this connection, Jagmohan (Bakshi)
approached Rafi to render what Sapan-Jagmohan felt was their
prize composition in "Begaana". And Rafi made this prize compo-
sition unforgettable as one he could by articulating it as "Phir
woh bhooli si yaad aayee hai". Remember, "Phir woh bhooli si
yaad aayee hai" was just a good composition in the hands of
Sapan-Jagmohan. It was left to Rafi to immortalise it as Sapan-
Jagmohan's best ever composition by rendering it in a style no
singer could excel.
Annu's father Sardar Maalik, though highly talented, never made
it to the big league. "Bachpan" therefore was just another pulp
film for which Sardar Maalik was scoring the music. And it would
have been forgotten as just another potboiler churned out by our
industry, but for Rafi, under Sardar's baton, arrested our atten-
tion with "Mujhe tum se mohabbat hai magar main keh nahin sakta".
The tune came first, the money after, in the case of Rafi. But
for the instinctually generous way in which Rafi adjusted his
charges for the small composer, we would have not got, in his
voice, from Iqbal Quraishi "Subah na aaye shaam na aaye" (from
"Cha Cha Cha"), not from Sonik-Omi "Dono ne kiya tha pyaar magar
mujhe yaad raha tu bhool gayi meri" (from "Mahua").
In the rare film in which Prem Dhavan doubled as song writer and
song composer, like in "Pavitra Papi", Rafi came up with a memor-
able hit for him like: "Allah hi Allah kar pyare Allah hi Allah".
The Rafi touch it could turn any disc into gold!
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From the RMIM Article Archive maintained by Satish Subramanian