An article on Rafisaab by Syed Badrul Ahsan as it appeared in NEW AGE, Dhaka (Bangladesh) - mohanflora.

If you have heard Mohammad Rafi, if you recall his songs, you do not need much more to convince yourself that his was an age of glory. He was the glory and the age was his. Think of the duet he sings with Lata Mangeshkar, Kabhi Raat Din Hum Door They / Din Raat Ka Ab Saath Hai, and you will have all those feelings of pristine passion rise up in your soul. People like you, like me, grew up listening to some of the best songs around us. Expand the idea a little, and what you have is the feeling, the knowledge that we have all been part of a world where cultural diversity has meant an enhancement of our sensibilities. Yes, we are speaking of the Indian subcontinent, of India as we knew it in the days before the division of the land. For all the political segmentation of the land, we have remained conscious of the common heritage we as a people, all the way from the mountain passes of the North-West Frontier through the plains of the Deccan to the beaches of Cox’s Bazaar, have been heir to.

It is within such an ambience that we recall the times of Mohammad Rafi. Remember that he has been dead for a quarter of a century and yet you know that he lives in the deepest recesses of your mind. There was in him the pain that came of knowledge of tragedy. In songs like Tootey Hue Khwabon Ne / Hum Ko Ye Sikhaya Hai, you have emerging before you, in the manner of the pale moon on a cold winter night, all the heartache that you have gone through. You hum the song and then find yourself moving into a new phase of expressive sadness through the inimitable Yaad Na Jaye Beete Dino Ki. It is Rajendra Kumar and Meena Kumari you glimpse in the old mirror of memory. It could well be someone you miss, a lover who remains out of reach. When you hear Rafi sing, it is a broken soul going through its own distinctive purgation of feelings somewhere deep inside you. The emotions that come in Rafi’s sad music often elevate themselves to a higher plane of feeling. His pain is transferred to Guru Dutt, who in turn injects the feeling into us. The song that we hear is Kahan Hain / Kahan Hain Muhafiz Khudi Ke / Jinhe Naz Hai Hind Par Wo Kahan Hai.

You move, soon, from the patriotic to the spiritual. How many songs have you heard, in all of the languages that you know, that possess the sublimity of Parwardigar-e-Alam Tera Hi Hai Sahara / Tere Siwa Jahan Mein Koi Nahin Hamara? That is where Rafi’s essence lies embedded. There was versatility in the man, there were in him qualities that are truly rare in artistes in these times of the banal and the inconsequential. He could be flippant and yet he could be dead serious in his romantic expression of love. If the 1960s song, Kanto Mein Phansa Anchal / Zulfon Mein Phansa Yeh Dil / Hai Ho Gayee Mushkil, made us feel like men just stepping out of our teens and into initial love, the 1950s number, Mohabbat Choome Jinke Haath / Jawani Paon Parhe Din Rath / Suney Phir Haye Wo Kis Ki Baat took us through a process of graduation in studies of the heart. The poetry, rich and sensuous in its quality, was the work of men who observed the world in terms of verse. In the delivery of the poetry, it was the melody in Rafi that carried the day. The Bahadur Shah Zafar ghazal, Na Kisi Ki Aankh Ka Noor Hoon / Na Kisi Ke Dil Ka Qarar Hoon, only added a new dimension to Rafi’s songs. He was the singer and yet he was more than that. He became the emperor, imprisoned and lonely in the strangeness of foreign territory. But Rafi as emperor could quickly evolve into Rafi the revolutionary, depicted in the image of Dilip Kumar proclaiming before the multitudes, Apni Azadi Pe Hum Sar Jhuka Sakte Nahin. Move on, move on, until you spot Rafi reaching out to the little child enmeshed in her birthday celebrations. In Ayee Hain Baharen Mitey Zulm O Sitam / Pyar Ka Zamana Aya Door Hue Gham / Ram Ki Lila Rang Layee / Shyam Ne Bansi Bajayee, there is a purity of spirit that comes through the trembling sentiments of an avuncular soul. You could go back home and sing the song to your children, to all the children you accost on the way home.

There are few in our generation who will easily forget the songs Rafi sang for the movie Aan. Yes, Dil Mein Chhupa Ke Pyar Ka Toofan will always be there, but try recalling that slower number, Takra Gaya Tumse Dil Hi To Hai / Roye Na Ye Kyun Ghayel Hi To Hai. You will then remember once again, after all these years of passing from youth into middle age, the pleasure that once came of your being in love with women who did not quite understand the ache in your wildly beating heart. And that, by the way, is the cruelty the world has generally dealt its lovers. Which is when we can only sing a song like Main Zindagi Ka Saath Nibhata Chala Gaya / Har Fikr Ko Dhuen Mein Urhata Chala Gaya. But not all love promises to be a fleeting, tragic beating of the drums at night. There are those that keep alive the spirit of youth, as if for ever. How else would you explain the permanent scars that have been left on your being by such Rafi numbers as Tere Mere Sapne Ab Ek Hi Rang Hain or Aaj Ki Raat Ye Kaisi Raat / Ke Humko Neend Nahi Aati? Or there is the song that Shammi Kapoor and Sharmila Tagore share, Diwana Hua Badal / Sawan Ki Ghata Chhai / Ye Dekh Ke Dil Jhuma / Li Pyar Ne Angrhai. Or there is that fabulous point in love when Dev Anand and Sadhana croon, as twilight descends around them and the town lights loom in the distance, Abhi Na Jao Chhorh Kar / Ke Dil Abhi Bhara Nahin.

There, ladies and gerntlemen, is Mohammad Rafi for you. He created and then inhabited, all by himself, a whole world. The ability in him to transform himself into a voice suiting the moment, the sheer zeal to make men on the screen come level with him through his music was a quality that remains unmatched to this day. He lived in an era when giants —- Mukesh, Hemant Kumar, Kishore Kumar, Talat Mehmood, Manna De —- made their own, singular contributions to the world of song. And yet Rafi stayed ahead of them, for there was in him the extraordinary capability of singing songs that lifted the heart to deeper levels of tragedy, as in Kabhi Khud Pe Kabhi Halaat Pe Rona Aya, or to push it into deeper stages of pregnant passion, as in Ankhon Hi Ankhon Mein Ishara Ho Gaya / Baithe Baithe Jeene Ka Sahara Ho Gaya.

We could go on and on talking of Rafi and singing his songs. No one who understands the culture of this subcontinent can ignore the impact Rafi has had on our lives. He forced us to think of music as food we could not do without. He informed us, through the deep tenor of romance in his voice, that it was necessary to fall in love, to lose the women we thought we could take along with us on a journey to the ends of the universe. We lose, yes. All the love, all the poetry we compose dissipates into nothingness as night falls. Yet in the brightness of a gathering twilight we sing Chalo Dildar Chalo / Chand Ke Par Chalo.
No journey could be more resonant with meaning than a timeless travel through the starry spaces of creation. And, of course, through the valley of music.

(Mohammad Rafi died on 31 July 1980)

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