S H MOULANA
RIYADH -It has been 44 years since Mohammed Rafi passed away on July 31, 1980 several years too early for a man who was only 55 then. His impact on Hindi cinema and his contributions to the Hindi film song cannot be outlined in a few hundred or thousand words. The tragedy is that there has been no serious attempt or exhaustive explanation of singer Manna Dey’s remark in reference to Rafi. The magic of his voice is celebrated, even venerated, but hasn’t yet been scrutinized microscopically. Yet another singer said ‘that feeling, his effortless singing is almost impossible to match, we are left with a complex, mystifying task of interpreting that feeling and the effortless nature of Rafi’s singing. During his career he received six Filmfare Awards and one National Film Award. In 1967 he was honoured with the Padma Shri Award by the Government of India. In addition Rafi was honoured ‘Best Singer Of The Millenium’ by Hero Honda and Stardust Magazine.During his singing career he topped well over 26,000 songs in multiple languages including Sinhala, our national language
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Despite being a teetotaler, he is arguably the finest in Hindi cinema. A music director says ‘When Rafi sings a dance song, you dance. When he sings a sad song, you cry. When he sings a love song a woman falls for him. Rafi gets inside of you, he becomes you and you become him. He has practically won every award offered and some many times over. He has worked under every famous music director and mostly under the legendary Naushad. When Mohammed Rafi made his first visit to Sri Lanka I was still in school. I took all the trouble to meet him at the GOH – later became known as Taprobane in Fort, where he stayed. When I asked him about the songs he intends to sing at the live concert at Town Hall, he told me that it will be entirely based on the requests of the audience. Luckily, I was one of the audience and there was a popular request for his hit number from the film Baiju Bawra ‘Duniyake rakwale’ When he started to sing this highly popular song, the crowd stood up to give Rafi a thunderous applause and none sat until end of the song. The crowd became delirious. This is an experience I will never ever forget. One has to experience it to believe it.
The legendary singer who mesmerized the world, Mohammed Rafi, died at 10.25 PM on 31 July 1980, following a massive heart attack. His last song was for the movie Aas Paas which he recorded under music director Laxmikant- Pyrelal and the song was ‘Shaam Phir Kyun Udaas Hai Dost / Tu Kahin Aas Pass Hai Dost’ Rafi was buried at the Juhu Muslim cemetery, in Mumbai. The government of India announced a two day public holiday in his honor. His scintillating voice will keep entertaining all his fans forever!
