Dr. Amjad Parvez

I remember having watched the movie ’Arzoo’ while in UK in late sixties with petit Sadhna singing Lata’s marvellous song “Bedardi baalma tujh ko mera mun” in bewitching wilderness backdrop. It has Muhammad Rafi’s melodies like “Aei phoolon ki rani baharon”, “Tera muskurana ghazab” and “Aji hum sei bicher kar”. Then another black and white cinema scope movie ‘Raat Aur Din’ is remembered for Rafi’s songs along with Lata and Mukesh. This movie had “Awara Aei Mere Dil” penned by Shailinder, by Lata in both happy and sad moods, the song “Raat aur din diya jale” by Lata was penned by Hasrat Jaipuri picturised on Nargis followed by Pardeep Kumar in a jungle; a haunting number. The song “Phool sa chehra” was penned by Hasrat Jaipuri and sung by Rafi, a ghazal composed in geet/qawwali style picturised on Pardeep Kumar with Nargis getting embarrassed. Nargis played double role, one of a debauch character with her singing Lata’s “Na chairo gham kei afsaney” while singing and drinking in a nightclub. The other songs are “Jeena hamko raas na aaya” by Shailendra and “Dil ki girah khol do” by Shailendra. The latter song is picturised on Nargis while in Feroze Khan’s arms in a nightclub. The male part is sung by Manna Dey. Why have I gone into details of this film’s music is because of the lovely rich but simple melodies composed by SJ for this movie. I have written in my book Melody Makers that in this movie Nargis’s dual role both in a good and negative character role is mesmerizing. In this movie, Pratap meets a young woman named Varuna. He falls in love with her and soon they get married. He later finds out Varuna at midnight in a nightclub, where she sings, dances and gets drunk. When he demands an explanation on Varuna’s part, she denies ever doing such things. Then Pratap meets a young man Dilip, who claims to be Varuna’s lover, and states that she is actually his girlfriend Peggy. It is later discovered that Varuna has a multiple personality disorder. Nargis bagged National award for best actress. This was one of last of black and white cinemascope movies and I love all its songs.

Even in Mukesh’s hey days, Rafi could not be ignored in Raj Kapoor’s movies and he sang “Naiya teri manjhdaar hoshiar” in the famous movie ‘Awara’, “Sawa lakh ki lottery” in the movie ‘Chori Chori’ and “Sadqe heer tujh pei” in ‘Mera Naam Joker’. Rafi’s versatility is shown in a fast number “Jaane kahan gai” from the movie ‘Dil Apna Aur Preet Parai’ and in the song “Jaan pehchan ho gai ho gi” from the movie ‘Gumnaam’. The movie ‘Andaz’ had a lovely song by Rafi despite Rajesh Khanna starring in it who used to patronise Kishore Kumar. This song was “Hai na bolo bolo” (with children). Two songs from the movie ‘Zindigi’ by Rafi were “Pehle mile thei sapnon mein” and “Hamne jafa na seekhi”. Dilip Kumar’s movie ‘Yehudi’ is famous for Mukesh’s “Yei mera diwanapan hei” but it too had Rafi’s number “Yeh duniya yei”. As mentioned above, out of six Filmfare awards, Rafi won three for Shankar Jaikishen songs, which were “Teri pyari pyari soorat ko”, “Baharon phool barsao” and “Dil ke jharokhe mein”. The song “Yahoo!” from the movie ‘Jungli’ was sung by Rafi, only to be matched with fast-paced orchestra and composition by Shankar Jaikishan and loud acting by Shammi Kapoor. SJ made Rafi give playback for Kishore Kumar in the film ‘Shararat’ (“Ajab hai daastan”). Those were the days when Kishore was struggling as an actor and was not established as a singer. Rafi sang a total of 341 numbers (216 solo) for SJ duo. Among the films of this combination are ‘Basant Bahar’, ‘Professor’, ‘Junglee’, ‘Suraj’, ‘Brahamchari’, ‘An Evening in Paris’, ‘Dil Tera Deewana’, ‘Yaqeen’, ‘Prince’, ‘Love in Tokyo’, ‘Beti Bete’, ‘Dil Aik Mandir’, ‘Dil Apna Aur Preet Parai’, ‘Gaban’ and ‘Jab Pyar Kisi Se Hota Hai’.

Association with Naushad Ali: It is now time to talk about Rafi’s association with music composer Naushad Ali. Whatever is the history of this association that we shall also go through in detail subsequently, my initial memories are stuck with the movie ‘Dulari’ song “Suhani raat dhal chuki”. This was Shakeel Bidayuni’s penned song from this 1949 movie. Many consider this song as the first mega hit of Rafi (so do I). One would notice that tabla or dholak is missing in this song with dummy mandolin played by the hero Suresh. The line “Khazan ka aa chala hei mausam-e-bahar” is difficult to be rendered in the second stanza but Rafi has rendered it with ease. Continuing with the playlist of Naushad/Rafi combination, the song “Mil mil ke gaein” with Lata and Madhubala dancing to Suresh’s mandolin from the movie ‘Dulari’ is also a captivating song.

From : Daily Times February 26, 2014

Part IV

Dr. Amjad Parvez

The ultimate combination of Abdul Rashid Kardar, Naushad Ali and Muhammad Rafi for this movie has been melodious. The star cast for this jubilee hit was Suresh, Madhubala and Geeta Bali. Another duet “Raat rangeeli mast nazare” with Madhubala sitting on royal seat and Suresh standing nearby with a dancer shown in silhouette was innovation of that time. Many music lovers believe that by far the number one song in Hindi movies has been the 1963 movie Mere Mehboob’s title song “Mere mehbub tujhe meri muhabat”. Its lyrics are the finest written by Shakeel Bidayuni and Naushad Ali has given the most heart-touching music. Rafi’s rendition is at his best but instead of Dilip, the film had Rajender Kumar as hero.

The best combination in Rafi’s initial days has been with actor Bharat Bhushan on Naushad Ali’s songs. All songs by Rafi of the film ‘Baiju Bawra’ like “O duniya ke rakhwale sun”, “Tu ganga ke mauj mein”, “Man tarpat hari darshan ko aaj”, “Nirdhan ka dhan lutnewale lut”, “Akeli mat jaiyo raadhe jamuna ke teer”, ‘Jhoole mein pawan ki aayi bahar”, “Door ki gaae dhun ye sunaae” (with Shamshad Begum), “Insaan bano karlo bhalai ka koi kaam” became very popular and out of, which first two are everlasting songs. The songs “O dunya kei rakhwaley” and “Mun tarpat” are representatives of raags, darbari and malkaus respectively. Songs “Mohe bhool gaye sawariya” and “Bachpan ki mohabbat ko dil se” are Lata’s everlasting melodies. The film was a golden jubilee hit with much impetus gained from Naushad’s classical raag based compositions and vocals of Rafi. The movie thus established two new stars Bharat Bhushan and Meena Kumari. It has been reported that Lata had given her opinion on this music as, “The music he composed for Baiju Bawara surprised even me. It was entirely different from what he had done before. Different raags were used for different situations and the purity of the raags was maintained to the greatest possible extent.” Now I would like to continue first with Rafi-Naushad-Dilip Kumar and Shakeel combination that produced dozens of popular songs. Out of this quartet three are no more now and at the time of writing this submission, Dilip Kumar is still alive with his birthday falling on December 11 though he is 90 now. Rafi died on July 31, 1980, almost 34 years ago. He was only 56 at that time. Similarly, Naushad died on May 5, 2006. It is a mere coincidence that three among them had their birthdays in December! Shakeel didn’t even reach the age of 54: born on August 3, 1916, he died on April 20, 1970. Shakeel had tried to be an actor initially but ended up as a successful poet in Bollywood in 1944. He hailed from the village Bidayuni as his name indicates. Instead of following the Progressive Movement like his contemporaries, he opted to say love-poetry instead. His first movie was AR Kardar’s ‘Dard’ in 1947. The songs were a hit especially “Afsana likh rahi hun dil-e-beqarar ka” rendered by Oma Devi (‘Tun Tun’). Though Shakeel wrote for music composers Ravi, SD Burman, Hemant Kumar and C Ramachander as well but his favourite always remained Naushad Ali. Unlike other poets, Shakeel did not drink but died young at the age of 53 due to diabetes related problems. Naushad Ali was three and a half years younger to Shakeel Bidayuni but was already an established name seven years before he came across Shakeel Bidayuni. Naushad Ali was a music composer who mostly based his songs on raags and qawwali beats being tutored and brought up in an environment akin to these traits. He ruled Bollywood for six decades before he was awarded with the Dadasaheb Phalke award in 1981 and Padam Bhushan in 1992. Dilip Kumar, a living legend was born as Muhammad Yusuf Khan in Peshawar (now in Pakistan) on December 11, 1922. Satyajit Ray called him the ultimate method actor. He too began his career in the same year as Shakeel did. He was the first actor to win Filmfare Best Actor Award; ultimately he won the highest number; eight in number, an honour that he shares with Shahrukh Khan. He was awarded the Padam Bhushan in 1991, Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award in 1993 and Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1994. He remained a good friend of Shakeel and Naushad all his life. The youngest in this quartet was Rafi; most humble in personality. During his film career he rendered about 8,000 songs that included 112 non-Hindi and 328 non-film songs. His career however lasted nearly half of Naushad Ali’s. In total, he sang 149 songs composed by Naushad Ali. For other languages than Urdu/Hindi he sang in Konkani, Bhojpuri, Orya, Punjabi, Bengali, Marathi, Sindhi, Gujarati, Kannada, Tamil, Maghi, Maithili, Assamese, English, Persian, Spanish and Dutch. 

From : Daily Times February 27, 2014