Article by Khilath Rasheed written on Thursday, January 28, 1999 06:03:44 PM for Haveeru Daily Online

MALE, Jan 28 (HNS) - A huge black-and-white poster of singer Mohamed Rafi decorates the bedroom wall of young Yoosuf Rasheed. The 23-year-old restored the singer’s poster after it almost got destroyed while lying at the bottom of a cupboard in his flooded room during the heavy rains of April 1991. The poster is valued greatly by Yoosuf — a devoted admirer of India’s most popular male singer — as he was not able to find a poster of Rafi, ironically, from India itself. So he took with him a small colour photograph of Rafi he cut out from an old magazine, which he kept in his wallet, and spent 300 Rupees on transforming it into a poster during his most recent visit to India in November.

Yoosuf Rasheed displays a colour poster of singer Mohamed Rafi: the 23-year-old fan has a collection of CDs and cassettes of more than 1,500 solos and duets of Rafi (Haveeru digital pic Khilath)

Yoosuf is only one among many locals in awe of Rafi’s exceptional talents at singing. Almost two decades after Rafi’s death, Maldivian homes, particularly families of Rafi’s generation, continue to listen to his golden voice.The young man, who works as a clinical assistant at the Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital in Male, not only collects photos and information on Rafi, but also has a formidable collection of cassettes and CDs of Rafi’s songs.

He estimates that he has 1,500 singles of Rafi, but which actually represent only five percent of Rafi’s more than 28,000 solos and duets. Yoosuf has listened to only about 2,000 songs, he says, adding that it will take more than two months and 28 days to listen to all the songs Rafi recorded during his lifetime. “But I cannot go to sleep listening to Rafi’s songs, I get too absorbed in it,” he says.

The 56-year-old singer died on 31 July 1980 when Yoosuf was only five. “It was said that the whole Male was quiet when news of his death reached here, but I do not remember,” Yoosuf says.

Though Yoosuf was too young to remember the glorious past of Rafi, the legendary singer made his mark on the young fan’s mind due to the playing of Rafi’s songs continuously in his home by Yoosuf’s late brother.

Rafi recorded his first singles at the age of 12, but he was introduced to Maldivian fans with his 1947 hit single “Watan Ke Raahame Watan Ke Naujavaan Shaheed Ho” that appeared in the soundtrack of the Hindi movie “Shaheed”.

Rafi died in 1980 four hours after recording the song “Taqdeer Ke Qalamse Koi Bach Na Paaega”. Though every song of Rafi is soothing to the ear, Rafi’s own favourite song was said to be “Suhaani Raat Dal Chukee” which appeared in the soundtrack of the 1949 Indian movie “Dulharee”.

“I believe that each single of Rafi’s songs is a lesson to every artist,” Yoosuf says, “even though I myself have not studied the theory of music. But I have listened more than enough to recognise his voice talent.” Yoosuf listens to more than 100 of Rafi’s songs every day, mostly because he records them freely on tape to friends who want to listen to Rafi.

He has recorded more than 5,000 songs and has yet to record more than 500 songs to more of his friends. “Anything for Rafi” Yoosuf says, however busy he might be from his work at IGMH and at a private clinic. Yoosuf is never tired of anything that concerns Rafi, and says he has collected more than 50 pages of information on the singer’s life.

But that seems not to be enough. He says that the Internet, the Information Superhighway, contains too little content on the revered singer and plans to launch a website on Rafi providing exclusive information on the singer. The website is to be developed in collaboration with an Indian fan club of Rafi. Yoosuf has also dedicated his own email address in memory of Rafi — mhdrafy@hotmail.com.

He plans to further his collection of songs, and is helped by relatives and friends, and Indian doctors at the hospital, who bring him cassettes and CDs of Rafi each time they make a trip to India.

“Yet it is extremely difficult to obtain some songs, particularly early records of Rafi,” Yoosuf insists, as some record companies have ceased re-releasing of Rafi’s old records.

He also has collected tapes and CDs of Rafi’s imitators, but unlike mainstream listeners who claim that pop singer Sonu Nigam is the best Rafi imitator, Yoosuf believes that Ashok Katar’s voice comes closest to Rafi. Yoosuf deplores Dhivehi songs sung to the tune of Rafi’s songs, saying that no locals are as talented as to imitate or produce “exact replicas” of Rafi’s songs.

But he has a taste for local singer Abdul Hannan Moosa Didi’s records, saying that the similarity between Hannan and Rafi was their extraordinary talent to use their voices at varying tones.

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