Muhammad Rafi — full throat, tuneful, versatile singer — Part XIV , XV

Dr. Amjad Parvez

Another duet “Chupne wale samne aa” is worth listening to. The representative Muhammad Rafi songs in OP Nayyar’s compositions are “Ghareeb jaan ke”, Jawanina ye mast mast bin piye”, “Mere hamsafar raste badal geye”, “Diwana hua badal”, “Dil ki awaz bhi sun”, “Hei duniya usi ki zamana usi ka”, “Ik pardesi mera dil lei gaya”, “Ye jheel si neeli ankhain”, “Yun tau hum nei lakh haseen dekhe hain”, “Mang ke saath tumhara main nei maang liya sansar”, “Buhut shukriya bari meherbani”, “Nazneen bara rangeen hei wa’ada tera” (with Asha), “Ae dil hei mushkil jeena yehan” and “Ankhon hi ankhon mein ishra ho gaya”. Four good songs (duets) are “Main dhoondti hun” (with Geeta Dutt), “Ye raat ashiqana” (with Asha), “Zara si baat ka” (with Geeta Dutt), “Main jaan gai tujhe saiyan” (with Shamshad Begum from the movie ‘Howrah Bridge’), “Ankhon se aankh mili” (with Asha for 1960 film ‘Mitti Mein Sona’), “Gustakh nazar chehre se hata” (from Madhubala/Dev Anand’s movie ‘Jaali Note’), “Dekh ke teri nazar” (with Asha), “Agar babu dil hei qabu” from the 1955 movie ‘Musafir Khana’, “Jane jiger yun hi hota rahe” from 1958 movie ‘Mujrim’ (wth Asha), “Hum ne tau dil ko aap kei” from the movie ‘Mere Sanam’ (with Asha), “Jhoote zamane bhar kei” (with Nirmala Devi from the 1955 movie ‘Musafir Khana’. A solo by Rafi “Banda parwe thaam lo jigger” from the 1963 movie ‘Phir Wohi Dil Laaya Hun’ needs special mention. So does “Maut ki bhi” from the movie ‘Sone Ki Chiriya’ despite it being a Talat Mahmood starrer movie with Nutun. Movie ‘Hamsaya’ had a melodious number “Dil ki awaz bhi sun” in 1968.

The song “Main hun Mr. Johny” from the movie ‘Mai Baap’ was a comedy number. So was “Worli naaka duniya dhamaka” Raj Kapoor-Madhubala film ‘Do Ustad’, “Chaya hei sama” from 1957 movie ‘Qaidi’ (with Asha).

This variety shows that the team could create any type of song from romantic to comedy numbers. It is reported in the media that OP admitted in an interview that he had a fall out with Rafi and OP had a fall out during the recording for movie ‘Sawan Ki Ghata’.
ML Dhawan reports that ‘The ego scuffle that followed OP Nayyar with Sahir Ludhianvi on the sets of ‘Sone Ki Chirya’ was like none other. It was the last film they worked together for. Nayyar said there had been ego clashes between Sahir and him over the lyrics in ‘Naya Daur’. B. R. Chopra freed Nayyar from the contract of composing music for ‘Sadhna’ when he felt that the vibes between Sahir and Nayyar had revealed ego hassles. Much has been said about Lata and O. P. Nayyar rift as Nayyar never used Lata’s vocal as crutches but still went on to become a legendary composer. As a matter of principle, Lata never sang for a music composer who takes over the scoring of a film midway through without proper permission from the outgoing composer. On such a basis, Lata did not entertain the idea of performing for Nayyar as he replaced Roshan in ‘Mehbooba’ in 1954.

Association with KalyanJi AnandJi: Souvik Chatterjee writes that Kalyanji Anandji’s (KA) association with Rafi in the 1970s require special mention considering the fact that RD Burman and SD Burman had sidelined Rafi to promote Kishore Kumar and with the death of Jaikishan, Roshan and many composers the only challenge that could be put forward before RD Burman was done by LP and KA. Despite that famous actors like Dilip, Raj Kapoor, Pardeep Kumar and Dev Anand were associated with composers Naushad, SK, Roshan and SD respectively, KA came out for Rafi and gave him songs such as “Govinda Ala Re” from Shammi Kapoor’s film ‘Bluff Master’ and Joy Mukherjee’s film ‘Ji Chahta Hai’ (the title song “Ji chahta hai”). These songs were very melodious. KA’s music in Shashi Kapoor’s film ‘Jab Jab Phool Khilen’ especially the song “Aik tha phool aur aik thi bulbul”, “Uffo Khuda”, “Pardesion se na akhian milana”, “Yehan mein ajnabi hun” and “Na na karte pyar tumhi se” (with Suman Kalyanpur) created sensations in the mid 1960s. Raja (Shashi Kapoor), a Kashmiri boatman and Rita (Nanda), a beautiful heiress from the city, fall in love. This was Shashi Kapoor-Nanda starrer movie. Wikipedia reports some highlights about the after effects of this movie, which are that Shashi Kapoor always said that Nanda was his favourite heroine, as she had signed with him when she was the bigger star. Director Suraj Prakash, writer Brij Katyal, star Shashi Kapoor, music composers Kalyanji Anandji teamed up again for another film, ‘Sweetheart’ (1970), co-starring Asha Parekh; it was never released, even though Asha has said that it was a “very sweet film”. Brij Katyal’s script was turned down by three top producers, including movie ‘Sholay’ (1975) creator GP Sippy.

From : Daily Times March 10, 2014

Part XV

Dr. Amjad Parvez

However, director Suraj Prakash felt it was a beautiful story and accepted it. It went on to become his greatest hit. It was his first colour film. To prepare for his role as Raja, Shashi Kapoor would spend days with the boatmen in Kashmir to study their lifestyle. Sometimes, he would have meals with them. At the film's Golden Jubilee celebrations, Suraj Prakash asked Brij Katyal what religion Raj belonged to, as it had never been specified and no one had noticed till now. It turned out that all the boatmen in Srinagar were Muslims. The writer was speechless, as this could have been portrayed as a Hindu-Muslim love story. Prakash claims this to be the true climax behind the making of his greatest hit. The climax, where Raja pulls Rita into the train, was shot at the Bombay Central Train Station. Suraj Prakash gave explicit instructions on how and when to pull Nanda into the train. Kapoor followed those directions so well that there were only a few feet left for the platform to end when he pulled her in. Prakash claims the incident was so hair-raising that he had shut his eyes and was convinced that Nanda's end had come.

I remember having seen the movie 'Haseena Maan Jaye Gi' while I was in UK. This was 1968 movie directed by Parkash Mehra with Shashi Kapoor, Babita, Johnny Walker and Ameeta in the cast. Two duets "Bekhudi mein sanam uth gaye jo qadam" and "Chale they sath mil ke" were mesmerising. Other Muhammad Rafi songs were "Suno Suno", "Dilber dilber kehta hua diwana" and "O! Dilber jaaniye". Besides, KA also used Rafi in duet song "Gulabi raat gulaabi" with Asha in the film 'Upkar', where Manna Dey's song "Qasmai Wade" made everlasting impact in the minds of the listeners. My most favourite song however remains "Akaile hai chale aao" from Rajesh Khana's movie 'Raaz' opposite Babita. I am surprised that despite lip-synching Rafi's beautiful songs in the initial phase of his career, why Rajesh Khana opted for Kishore Kumar later on! KA's sincerity with Rafi continued and they kept on using his voice for songs like in Dilip Kumar's film 'Gopi' and created songs like the Bhajan "Sukh ke sab sathi", which still remains one of the adorable devotional songs.
KA and Rafi created storms in the film 'Geet' like creating the song "Mere mitwa aja tujh ko pukare mere geet". Each and every song picturised on Rajeder Kumar became hit. The compositions of KA involving folk flavour of the mountains always enchanted the Indian audience right from the movie 'Himalay Ki God Mei' to 'Maryada'.

Association with Lakshmikant Pyarelal: We have discussed Rafi's association with all the leading music composers of his time. We must not forget his work for music composers Lakshmikant Pyarelaal. The duo music composers created melodious melodies during their association with Rafi; 369 numbers composed for him out of, which 186 were his solo items. We shall only quote some of these songs as these pertain to all type of moods indicating adaptability of the team in different situations. The duo used him for the first time in the film 'Chaila Babu' for which Rafi at that time showed his generous gesture by not accepting any payment for the song "Tere pyaar ne mujhe gham diya". I saw Rafi crooning with full throat melodious numbers for the duo for the movie 'Dosti' in 1964. Hence the laurels were won by the team in the shape of the Filmfare Awards for the song "Chahoonga main tujhe saanjh savere". Another song "Rahi manwa dukh ki chinta kyun satati hei" was a mesmerising number from this film. Actually all songs by Rafi left their mark from this movie.
One goes into happy and romantic mood when one listens to 1969 movie 'Jeene Ki Raah' song "Aane se uske aye bahaar".

This was LV Parsad directed movie with Jeetendra and Tanuja in the lead. Then one gets into melancholy mood when the lover misses his beloved in the movie 'Qismet' and sings Rafi's song "Jab jab bahar aai".

Both these songs were hits of their time. Movie 'Qismet' has another sad number picturised on Bharat Bhushan "Mujhe bhool jana agar ho sake". In this song, Bharat Bhushan portrays a character in which people consider him a madcap and children throw stones at him due to his careless attire. From this song one can decipher that LP had the quality of taking out lots of emotions from Rafi's vocals. The movie 'Banphool' had LP's music with lyrics by Anand Bukhshi. This 1971 Vijay Bhatt movie had Jeetendra and Babita in its cast. Babita portrays the role of a tea vendor. Rafi-Lata's duet, "O! sapno kei raja, tu chore main sipahi" is a catchy number.

From : Daily Times March 11, 2014

Back to APNA Web