Everyone in my family is a big lover of music and movies so I had been exposed to a sizeable dose of Bollywood music right from my early childhood days. We had a big Panasonic tape recorder and a smaller Panasonic Radio. A day would typically start with songs by Rafi sahib, as my mom would go about the regular chores of house work listening to Rafi sahib. My father due to his rural upbringing had some fascination for the Radio and he would carry it with him everywhere in the house, after getting back from the office. So at nights we would have Vividh Bharti entertaining us, and we would all wait for Ameen Sayani sahib’s Binaca Geetmala. My mother was and is a fan of old Bollywood music, with Rafi sahib without doubt being the first choice, and we had a decent collection of songs by Rafi sahib in form of hundreds of audio cassettes. But well that didn’t make me Rafi sahib’s fan. I was too young to appreciate his singing, even though I liked hearing him. In those days the Disco fever was at its peak, now people are going to get a hearty laugh, to learn that in those days I liked the songs of “Disco Dancer” (yeah Bappi Daa one) and also enjoyed listening to singers like Nazia Hassan, and so on. Nevertheless, I used to have a great time whenever my mom would put the songs sung by a certain Mr. Rafi.

It is important that I mention that due to certain incidents which occurred when I was 3-4 years old, I developed hatred for movies, I would never go to any of the theaters, or watch any movie on the TV that was at my maternal grand parents house. We didn’t get a TV untill I was 9-10 years old. So, I was not aware of the concept of playback singing for a long time. My dislike for Movies continued for some more time, but as I grew older things started to change and I started watching movies. The real exposure to movies started to happen when we bought a VCR, I guess I was then 11-12 years old. My favorite actors were the likes of Shammi Kapoor, Dharmendra, and Jeetendra and later on Amitabh. We also bought couple of VHS cassettes of Golden Oldies by Rafi sahib and Lata didi, I used to watch them over and over again, especially the one with Rafi sahab's singles.

By this time I have started to feel the aura of the Rafi sahib's voice, and I could see how very well he could tweak and modulate his voice to suit different actors. I have just uncovered the elixir called Rafi. When I watched sholay for the first time, it took me a while to understand what was wrong with Dharmendra’s voice in the song “Koi Haseena Jab Rooth Jati Hai To”, which was just that it was not sung by the Master. But, now I have started to understand all these nuances.

Rafi sahib became an integral part of my life when I went to college for my undergraduate. During the first year I didn’t have any music system at my room, but even then I had brought some of the audio cassettes from home which I used to listen on my friends system . I seriously felt the need for it, and I finally got one for myself as I entered the second year of my hostel life. My performance as a student was not very remarkable during the first year, and it kind of worsened during the third semester, and so I got a bit worried. The fact remains that like most students I am also not very fond of studying, but then I had to study, “izzat ka sawaal thaa”. And Rafi sahib came to my rescue, every night before beginning my study, I would listen to my favorite Rafi numbers and that would help me relax and get me into good mood and by associating something which I disliked (read studying) with other thing  which I loved (listening to Rafi sahib), I was finally able to put some good hours at study, and came out getting the first rank in my department, and over all fifth rank among the batch of 470 IITians, and there was no turning back. I had read in one of the books about how music influences the activity of our brain, and certain types of music stimulate and enhance the functioning of brain and hence improve learning capabilities. The author of the book had claimed that only western classical and certain types of Chinese and Indian music has such capabilities. To begin with I tried with the Baroque Western Classical Music, but it wasn’t to my liking, so I discovered my own study music, Rafi songs. Rafi songs served yet another vital purpose for me, it used to act like noise shield for me, whenever my neighbors would put some irritable noisy cacophonous English rock/metal music, I would play Rafi songs on full volume and immerse myself in the ocean of tranquility.

The day I learnt the "art" of downloading music from the internet, I downloaded 100s of Rafi songs, and since then I have been collecting his songs, which now stand around 1800. The more I listen to them, more I discover his versatility and his genious. However, I don’t think I would ever be able to fathom the depth of his singing capabilities. After starting a Rafi community in orkut, I met several like minded people, and through several enlightening discussion I got a chance to peep into his life history and know more about him. As we all know he was a singer par-excellence and an angel of a person. To begin with I was only spellbound by his singing brilliance, but more I discovered about him, I was totally bowled over by his simplicity, and compassionate nature. No doubt even God couldn’t stay away from him for long enough, and took him away from us and left millions of unsatisfied music lovers who wanted more and more of him. Today I try to idolize him in every possible way, which I know may be beyond my reach. Shri Krishna says in the second chapter of Bhagwad Geeta, “yogah karmashu kaushalam”, which means that “perfection in action is yoga”. So anyone who perfects his "karma" (action) is a yogi. Now, can any singer be more perfect than Rafi sahib, can any human being be more perfect than what Rafi sahib was? He is like a yogi to me, a true karmayogi, he always focused on performing the action, whether it was, his duties as a singer, as a father, as a husband, or as a human being. He went about doing all of it without ever being attached to the fruits of his actions. You can’t find a better example of a Saint in modern day world. Can you?

---

Last update : 19-03-2008 20:33

Average user rating

   (1 vote)

Display 4 of 4 comments