By Souvik Chatterji

Joy Mukerjee and Mohd Rafi

Veteran actor Joy Mukherjee died on 9^th March, 2012. He was the son of noted filmmaker Sasadhar Mukherjee and Sati Debi. Sasadhar Mukherjee was the co-founder of Filmalaya Studios.

Joy Mukherjee stormed bollywood films with his debut in the film Love in Simla in 1960. It was directed by RK Nayyar. Iqbal Qureshi composed the music of the film. From that time the everlasting combination of Joy Mukherjee with Mohammad Rafi stormed bollywood music for the next 10 years. (more…)

By Achal Rangaswamy

Sri Ravi Shankar Sharma

While I was driving back from work, and for some strange reason, only one song kept coming back to me. It was “ Na muh chhupa ke jiyo aur na sar jhukaake jiyo”. Little did I know at that time that music director Ravi was already gone.

As usual, it was my friend from Bangalore Nagesh Sidhanti who had informed us by mail, but I hadn’t checked the mail but had just posted a Holi Song of Rafi Saab- the very popular Holi Khelat Nandalal Biraj mein from Godaan.  When I saw a response to that post of mine from Vasudha my other friend from Bangalore, I wondered why she mentioned Ravi in her reply.  Upon scrolling down a mail or two I read this note from Nagesh.  And I was dumb struck. What a coincidence. I had been thinking of many songs, and all of them were Ravi Saab’s songs. (more…)

By Achal Rangaswamy

Joy Mukherjee and Mohd Rafi

It has been a bad week for all of us. First we received news of music director Ravi Saab passing away. For me personally, the hanging up of his cricketing boots by Rahul Dravid was equally heart-wrenching and tragic. I had just finished listening to a few people tell me about his press conference, when I read a brief note from my good friend Rameshbhai  Kurpad (simple sailor we all call him), that Joy Mukherjee had passed away.

I was in the midst of an important meeting at work almost all day and right into very late in the evening, but I just couldn’t help recalling some great moments of Joy that I had felt thanks to this chocolate hero of the golden era of hindi films. (more…)

By Souvik Chatterji

Mohd Rafi with Shakeel and Ravi

Renowned music director Ravi Shankar Sharma died on 7^th March, 2012, at the age of 86 years. His music had remained immortal over the years.

From the film Vachan and Albeli in 1955 he started his musical journey. In 1960, Mohammad Rafi’s soft ghazal “chaudavi ka chand” in the film Chaudavi Ka Chand made him a musical star. Guru Dutt’s picturization was as outstanding as the lyrics and the brilliant performance of Rafi. From that time it was magic been created whenever Rafi and Ravi combined together. (more…)

By Salim K

Rafi Sahab with Jaikishen and Harindranath Chattopadhyay

No other singer has sung in that many languages as Rafisahab has. His vocals blessed many languages nationally and internationally whether it was Konkani, Bhojpuri, Oriya, Punjabi, Bengali, Marathi, Sindhi, Kannada, Gujarati, Telugu, Maghi, Maithili and Assamese . He also recorded a few songs in foreign languages such as Persian, Spanish, Dutch, Creole and English.

Rafi Sahab conquered another frontier when he sang for an entire album in English. The Music was given by Shankar Jaikishen and lyrics by eminent actor, writer, poet and freedom fighter Harindranath Chattopadhyay. The 2 songs of the album that most Rafians are aware of are “Although we hail from different lands” and the other “The she I love”. The former had the composition as “Baharon Phool Barsao” and the latter had the composition of “Hum Kale hai tho kya hua”. (more…)