This article is by Ms. Nalini Ramji.

I am writing to share with you my story of how my deep love for Mohammed Rafi has affected my life.

I was born in Canada and grew up in the US from the age of 4. It’s funny - during all those years, I never clicked with any of the local culture here. My mother was a Bharata Natyam dancer and I also used to learn Carnatic vocal music - I used to really enjoy the light peppy dance music - but still I don’t remember feeling a part of either culture.

In 1976, when I was 13, my father was posted to Delhi on a short assignment from his company in Los Angeles. My mother chose to stay in Mumbai where her mother still had a large flat, so that she could resume her dance lessons under her guru. So we moved from Hollywood to Bollywood… The assignment dragged on, and I started attending a local school. For the first time in my life, I made Indian friends. They were very accepting of this strange Indian girl from Disneyland, who didn’t know much about Indian culture. But they were already in the 9th standard, and there was no way that I could catch up with their levels of Hindi, Marathi and Gujarati. So, when they had their language classes, I left and studied French instead. I had never been exposed to Hindi until then, and somehow still managed to avoid it - not by intention - I just didn’t know any better.

After finals, my classmates used to go to see a Hindi movie. They always invited me, but I would decline since I didn’t understand the language. These people were really wonderful and insisted that I come, promising to translate the dialogue for me. So I went… The very first film I saw was Sholay - quite an introduction! I don’t remember which movie it was - I think it must have been Amar Akbar Anthony - in which I heard Rafi Sahab’s voice for the first time. I still remember thinking that whoever this singer is, he must look like Rishi Kapoor! I was really shocked when I found out that he was much older, and balding… I came home and told my mother that I had just heard an incredible singer - when I mentioned his name, she started reminiscing about the movies she’d grown up with, like Baiju Bawra. All of a sudden I had found a gold mine…

From then on, I was determined to learn Hindi. It wasn’t enough to go into a trance whenever I heard his voice - I had to know why he was crying or laughing! I got some books and spent my weekends and spare time learning how to read and write. I would listen to one of his songs on tape and try to find the words. Of course, through all this, I learned some rather odd Hindi to start with, and my friends teased me that I knew more about mohabbat than about kela! They soon gave me the moniker of Rafi-ki-diwani, and laughed over the fact that they were into European and American music groups while I had moved from the land of Michael Jackson to go crazy over an Indian! (Once I moved back to California, I put the license plate Rafi Nut on my car - the only way to fit Rafi-ki-diwani in 8 letters…)

I used to visit Rhythm House in Mumbai on a constant basis, to the point that one of the salesmen, by name of Akbar, got to know me quite well, and would pull out the latest LPs with Rafi Sahab’s songs when I came! Then I would sit in the listening booth and decide which LPs to purchase. When it came time to move back to the US, part of our luggage included 1000 LPs! After moving back, I made audiocassettes by extracting Rafi Sahab’s songs from those LPs. Each cassette had a different theme, such as Dilip Kumar - sad, etc. I made a total of about 75 such cassettes.

During that phase of my life, I felt that I became an Indian as well as an American.

In July 1979, a couple of months before we moved back to the US, my uncle, who happened to direct serious films, said to me, Well, if you’re that crazy about him, you should meet him! I was ecstatic. He arranged the meeting, and I went to Rafi Villa along with my mother and one of my dearest friends. We had to wait outside for a few minutes while he was finishing something, so his secretary offered us something to drink. I took some water and was just drinking it, when the secretary announced that we could come in. I jumped up, spilling the water on myself, and feeling rather embarrassed! We went in and sat in his living room. I still couldn’t speak Hindi, so I smiled at him a lot - who knows what he thought of this strange girl from America? - and my mother did all the talking. I will treasure that memory to this day. He was incredibly sweet and humble. Rafi Sahab’s voice was so soft. He just waved a hand and said Yeh sab meri award hain. My brothers were ill and unable to come and he asked Bachche sab beemar hain?. His secretary could speak English, so I would say a few words to the secretary, but mostly I just smiled. He also didn’t know what to say. Meeting him in person is very different from seeing him on stage, which I also had the chance to do later that year when he toured the US. But that day in his house - very tastefully decorated, simple and elegant - was very special. I don’t remember what he said, but I just remember being in his presence, and the incredible feeling of lightness and ease around him. He also invited us to one of his recordings, and I regret to this day that we never made it to that, as we were busy packing to return to the US.

After that, I started studying Urdu on my own, determined to go back and actually speak to him. But that didn’t happen. I was stunned when I heard about his sudden death, and went into a strange depression for over a week. All my life my medium of expression had been words - whether journaling or writing light poetry - and now I found that to be a cathartic means of healing. The following eulogy I wrote to him, helped me to come out of this grief and became one of my best poems ever.

Since then, I have become reasonably fluent in Hindi, and my knowledge of Devanagari helped me quickly pick up some Sanskrit as I moved into a more spiritual phase of my life. Yet, my love for Rafi Sahab continues to grow stronger, and it will never die. My friends find it quite amusing and yet appropriate that my house is completely filled with pictures of Krishna except for an area of my living room with pictures of Rafi Sahab, which is designated as my Rafi shrine. I will always owe him an incredibly deep debt of gratitude for the doors that have opened in my life through my love for him.

- Nalini Ramji

This entry was posted on Monday, December 3rd, 2001 at 4:02 am and is filed under Meri Awaaz Suno. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.