August 7th, 2010

Mohammad Rafi – Part 4

The non-controversial, low profile singer overrode professional ego at all times. Such was the supreme desire to sing. Such was the devotion to his art and his phenomenal talent. Modest and generous to a fault, Rafi Saab, neither flaunted nor promoted his family, A faithful husband, a doting father to four sons and three daughters, a devout Muslim, he remained to the last. A liberal father, Rafi never forced music on his children. Only the youngest, Shahid Rafi has been inclined to singing. Perhaps the reminder of a disciplinarian father and the firm conviction that when you truly follow your heart, you achieve what you really want was what moulded Rafi. For Rafi Saab even considered becoming an actor, and did actually face the camera in Laila Majnu in 1945, alongside lead pair Swarnalata and Nazir to sing the chorus in `Tera jalwa jissne dekha’. Two years later Rafi was seen again briefly in Jugnu. But Rafi followed the dictates of his heart that wasn’t set on acting.

A thoughtful and considerate father, Rafi made sure his family could live in comfort, long after him.

A compassionate human being Rafi recorded for small time composer Nissar Bazmi who had migrated to Pakistan, a song, for a token fee of Re.1.

Composer Laxmikant vouches ‘He would never ask what he was going to be paid for a song. Apart from waiving off payments, he even helped producers financially. He’d help out the needy. He always gave without thinking of the returns’.

Son Shahid recalls ‘If a producer was in a tight spot Abba wouldn’t accept any money from him. He was a God fearing man. He felt he was an instrument through whom God was singing… whenever he was extra busy he’d ask the producer to give the song to another singer’.

Deeply religious, when Rafi Saab was warned against singing, during a Haj pilgrimage, he practically gave up his career. Returning to it only at the insistence of his sons.

Every music lover will recall the dark years of Hindi playback when Rafi and Lata fell out over the issue of royalty. Perhaps the only time the gentle genius took a firm stand. Here was something that he believed went against his well ingrained value system. Lataji firmly believed that singers were entitled to royalty fees over and above the fee paid for recording. Rafi was of the opinion that a singer’s remunerative claims ended once he or she had been paid for recording a song.

Emotionally coaxed by some producers, the magnanimous Rafi had voluntarily chosen to forfeit all royalty claims. To Rafi, creating financial hardships for his producers was a far graver issue than his rightful claim on his art.

Both were right in their own way. After four years, the two finally called a truce, at the instance of Nargis, at a stage concert, to sing ‘Dil pukare’. Lataji confessed with her natural honesty that she had forfeited the privilege of singing with Rafi, only for a just cause. But then she continued ‘making up with such a honest and guileless person like Rafi Saab didn’t take too long’.

For the honest, principled Rafi life was not always smooth – sailing. With the changing trend of uni-dimensional heroes, the flash and flamboyance of the superstar cult, the complete artiste suffered. From subdued, sensitive vocals, tastes changed to a more open, more demonstrative but largely simplistic style. Characters became stereotypes. Actors became stars.

There was also Kishore Kumar whose star was in ascendance with the patronage he received from the Burmans. There was the coincidental eclipse in the fortunes of Shammi Kapoor and Rajendra Kumar. At the peak of the Kishore wave in the seventies O.P. Nayyar was quoted as saying. ‘How I wish I had just one film in hand to settle all this nonsense, they’re talking about Rafi. Always remember one thing. That if there had been no Rafi, there would have been no Nayyar’.

But Rafi refused to assert himself. And for this lack of fighting spirit, his mentor Naushad chastised, him. `Is there any male singer today, who’s even a fraction as good as you are? You still have the ability to beat the daylights out of all of them’.

True it was but unfortunate. Rafi Saab did make an amazing comeback as the voice for the young Rishi but his reign was over. Perhaps it was for the best. The true Rafi devotee still remembers him as the voice of the both the intellectually complex Guru Dutt in Pyaasa, Kaagaz Ke Phool and in the immortal Chaudhvin Ka Chand and of the crazy, prancing,gyrating, lovable Shammi Kapoor. Could such versatility have found true expression in the simplistic stories and portrayals of the seventies? Could such talent have been contained in the black and white persona of later times?

Rafi and only Rafi could have bridged the gap between the classical `Madhuban mein Radhika nache’ that he sang for the Thespian in Kohinoor and the breezy, street smart, cocky `Sar jo tera chakraye’ for comedian Johnny Walker in C.I.D.

Who else but Rafi, can transcend age, culture and religious barriers, override genre and form and sing practically every kind of music known to man?

That he strode the film music scene as a colossus for two decades, leaving behind a legacy of more than 5,000 songs, is what every music lover is grateful for.

In these difficult and hard times, these are songs to live and love by. As Naushad Saab proclaims.Tu hi tha pyar ka ek saaz / Nafrat ki is duniya mein / Ganimat thi teri awaz / Nafrat ki is duniya mein’ – Subhash K. Jha

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