Mohammed Rafi – Amar Chand ka Amar Gayek
Wednesday, July 30th, 2008This article was provided by holyfamilydr at aim.com. This article in Urdu is written by: Dr. Khaja Aliuddin, Chicago, USA.
Kaun hai jo Mohd. Rafi ko filmi duniya ke hawale se nahi jantha? Mohd. Rafi na sirf Indo-Pak balke Indo-pak se baher hindustani gayeki ko pasand karne walon ke dilon me apna ek ooncha muqham rakhte hain. Mohd. Rafi ek aise lajawab gayek the jinhone apni khudadad awaz ke bal bote par karoron logon ko bahut jald apna chahne wala banaliya tha. Mohd. rafi ki awaz ek aisi awaz thi jiska mast bhara jadoo aaj bhi sunne walon ke sar chad kar boltha hai aur shayed rahti duniya tak boltha rahega. (more…)
Needless to say that Rafi Sahab has been one voice that has touched everybody with
5TH July, 2008 will be remembered by music lovers in Hyderabad as a day of revival of the vintage music of the hfm. For nearly six months now, we have been trying to organize a grand musical show and also invite some well known playback singer of the yesteryears to Hyderabad. The closest we came to was the name of Mubarak Begum Sahiba and our good friend Samarjit Acharjee was in continuous contact with her. Either the glorious singer with the golden voice was not available when we had wanted to organize a show or we were preoccupied with our normal lives and thus we could not go ahead with the idea that remained in our minds. However, we did not lose heart and kept our trials going. 
Whenever I listen to certain songs of yesteryears, I am always baffled by the choice of Singers for the particular song where the actors are required to act songs in an unfamiliar voice or without their usual singers. Of course, I am referring to songs mostly from pre-70s especially sixties as post-70, it became a fad for all the heroes to have KK singing for them and in fiftees, almost all Heroes had two or three Singers singing for them. When I listen to the melodious Rafi – Lata duet “Tum Hi Tum Ho Mere Jeevan Me†(Ek Dil Sau Afsane), I wonder what made SJ to select Rafi in place of Mukesh or even Mannadey, two best known play back singers for Raj Kapoor. Similarly, Rafi’s song in Mera Naam Joker. 
A big debate is going on in various web sites of Rafiji, KK and others regarding who was a better singer. In fact, this sort of discussion was always going on even in our days when we used to heatedly argue as to who was better.
The Eyes which are an integral part of our body are a gift of nature. Eyes can give an expression without words. The portrayal of love, emotions, fear, confusion, mischief, solitude, pain, cruelty, truthfulness, etc can be expressed through eyes. In the golden era of 50s and 60s when love was expressed through sensuality, eyes played an integral part of the characterization of a role. This provided a lot of scope to writers to pen down some of the evergreen writings in the form of songs, dialogs, scripts, etc. 
Mohammad Rafi transformed thousands of ordinary songs into unforgettable & immortal with the touch of his charismatic voice. After the departure of this great legend, incalculable numbers of new singers came to light and many of his contemporary singers claimed to be best, but all disappeared in the dark. On other hand the magical effect of the songs of Rafi Sahab on the hearts of millions of music lovers is becoming deeper day by day. 
Dev Anand was called evergreen hero because of his looks, boyish charm, his style, his positive energy and perhaps also due to the fact that he acted with maximum heroines in his career. The songs he sang on screen added to his romantic image whether the Singer was Rafi or KK or Talat or Hemant or even Mannadey (‘Chale Ja Rahe Hain, Mohabbat Ke Maare’ from Meena Kumari starrer Kinare Kinare). Songs from his fiftees and especially early sixties were mainly instrumental in popularising his movies. 
It was a CLASSIC rain song sung by Rafi Saheb with beautiful composition by Roshan Saheb on extraordinary lyrics by Sahir Ludhyanvi from the film Barsat Ki Raat with perfect lip harmonization by Bharat Bhushan on whom good numbers of Rafi gems had been picturized and who came to spotlight of stardom with golden voice of Rafi Saheb. The said song was twice in the film, one solo by Rafi Saheb and one duet by RafI-Lata picturised on Bharat Bhushan and Madhubala. There was another classical rain song in the film “Garjat Barsat Sawan Aayo Re†which was sung by Suman Kalyanpur and Kamal Barot. 
Mohammed Rafi Sahab has sung plenty of duets with many female Singers, but quantity-wise, duets with Asha and Lata stand out. It is gathered that Rafiji has sung about 903 duets with Asha and about 447 with Lata. The huge difference was perhaps due to Rafi-Lata’s rift for about three years and consequently the higher number of duets of Rafi- Asha during that period. One more reason was the preference of MDs like OPN to have only Rafi and Asha.