Mohammed Rafi
The great singer Mohammed Rafi is globally remembered today on his centenary 100th birth anniversary today . Perhaps every actor from 1940 to 1980 had one of their greatest hit songs sung by the Legendary singer Mohammed Rafi.
He may not be in this world anymore but his memories and memorable thousands of songs will continue to live indefinitely and remain evergreen because artists like him who make a home in every heart are quite rarely born.
He made an indelible mark on India’s music .
Rafi’s remarkable journey from humble beginning to becoming a musical sensation perfectly showcases the essence of perseverance and an in born talent. God endowed him with almost a divine like voice and thus the beauty of his songs is immeasurable . It is nearly impossible to replicate the magnitude of the Rafi’s performance, style, and voice. He possessed perhaps unmatched singing skills in terms of technique, expression and emotion, making it incredibly challenging for anyone to resing his songs. His pronunciation and diction were crystal clear, and there was a delightful playfulness in his delivery that proved to be the most arduous aspect for anyone to recreate.
Over the course of a career spanning almost four decades , Rafi sang more than 7000 songs not only in hindi but also in Maithili, Bhojpuri, Tamil, telgu ,bengali, punjabi, marathi , odia and many more languages .Singer Mohammad RafiMohammed Rafi was born to Allah Rakhi and Haji Ali Mohammad in a Punjabi Jaat Muslim family at Kotla Sultan Singh, a village in Amritsar district of Punjab Rafi, on 24.12.1924 . Rafi’s father moved to Lahore in 1935, where he set up a barbers sho in Bhati Gate. Rafi learnt classical music from Abdul Wahid Khan and Pandit Jiwan Lal Mattoo .Rafi sang his first song “ Goriye Nee, Heeriye Nee” in the Punjabi film Gul Baloch under music director Shyam Sunder at Lahore in 1941 and in the same year he was invited by All India Radio ,Lahore s to sing for them.
He went to bombay in 1944 and made his Hindi singing debut in film Gaon Ki Gori in 1945. After partition, Rafi decided to stay back in India and brought his family to Bombay .
In his career, Rafi sang for almost all the music directors notably Naushad Ali , O. P. Nayyar, Shankar Jaikishan, S.D. Burman ,Roshan, Madan Mohan , laxmikant pyarelal , kalyanji Anandji , C. Ramchandra, Jaidev, Khayyam, Ravindra Jain, Bappi Lahiri, Sapan Jagmohan, Hanumantha Rao, Usha Khanna, Sonik Omi, Chitragupta and R.D. Burman in his career from 1945 to 1980 and recorded one hit and memorable song after another .
It is difficult to list out his outstanding songs as the number runs in to hundreds if not thousands including duets with Lataji and Asha Bhonsaley .
He was notable for his versatility and range of voice; his songs varied from fast numbers to patriotic songs, sad numbers to highly romantic songs, qawwalis to ghazals and bhajans to classical songs.
Rafi Saheb had four sons and three daughters from his second wife – Bilquis Bano . His hobbies included playing badminton, carrom, and flying kites. He was a teetotaller and abstained from smoking and used to stay away from the filmy parties .
He was a calm , humble, selfless and ego -less family-loving gentleman. He contributed to the society by helping people through his charity and notable deeds.
He won one National Film Award , six Filmfare Awards , three Bengal Film Journalists’ Association Awards and one
Sur Singer Award .
In 1967, he was honored with the Padma Shri award In 2001, he was honoured with the “Best Singer of the Millennium” title by Hero Honda and Stardust magazine and in 2013, he was voted as the Greatest Voice in Hindi Cinema in the CNN-IBN’s poll .
His annual birth and death anniversaries inspire several thousand musical tributes on stage, radio and television.
An official biography on Rafi’s life by Sujata Dev titled Mohammed Rafi – Golden Voice of the Silver Screen was launched on his 91st birthday in 2015 . Further an award winning documentary titled ‘Dastaan-E-Rafi ‘ directed by Rajni Acharya and Vinay Patel (which took 5 years to make) was released to commemorate his 92nd birthday on 24.12.2016 .
He died suddenly on 31.07.1980 due to massive attack , shocking all the music lovers . His burial procession consisted of thousands and govt had declared two days of public mourning in his honour .
Singers of Rafi Sahab’s calibre emerge only once in a generation and thus he will be remembered for centuries for his beautiful songs .
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Seven stars
