[Reader-list] Delhi remembers Mohd Rafi on his 86th Birth Anniversary

[rohitrellan at aol.in]

(New Delhi, Dec 25 Three decades have passed since the death of 
legendary singer Mohammed Rafi but his memories are still fresh in the 
mind of millions of his fans. On the eve of Rafi's 86th Birth 
Anniversary, a number of his fans and music lovers gathered yesterday 
in New Delhi to remember their favourite singer. The Function was 
organized by "Spectrum Music", a new Forum founded by SL Bhola to 
promote vintage music by organizing Functions in memories of playback 
singers and film music directors of yesteryears. This first Function 
was in memory of Mohd Rafi. 
                                Speaking on the occasion, the Chief 
Guest of the evening Mr Amarjit Singh Kohli, Chairman, Yaadgar-E- Rafi 
Society and Sakha, who had started, in 1984, the tradition of 
organizing annual musical programmes in memory of Mohd Rafi, said that 
Rafi due to his versatility has the greatest fan following amongst 
young upcoming singers. He felt that it is possible to train young 
singers through a select-course of Rafi’s songs (classical, light, 
qwali, sad, happy, parody, ecstasy, agony, pop, rock-n-roll, high 
pitched, low-pitched, boisterous, soft, ghazel, bhajan, naten, 
romantic, melancholic & other shades covering every emotion and mood of 
human life). He appealed to music researchers and Faculties of Music of 
various Universities to design such a training course by establishing 
an Institute of Rafi Music. 
 
     Sh SL Bhola, founder of Spectrum Music invited people interested 
in promoting vintage music to lend him a helping hand. Sh Triloki Nath, 
Chairman, Rafi Foundation Memorial Society, said that the coming 
generations, will wonder and question their grandparents whether this 
amazing variety of songs were really sung by the same person. 
 
Rafi was born on 24th December 1924 in village Kotla Sultan Singh of 
Amritsar District and died on 31st July, 1980 in Mumbai. He made his 
debut in Punjabi Film " Gul Baloch" in 1944 with the song "soniyi ni 
heeryi ni" set to music by Shyam Sunder. Rafi was so much enamoured of 
Kundan Lal Saigal that he participated as a chorus singer in Saigal's 
song "Roohi roohi roohi"(Shahjehan ,1946) & also sang one line of it in 
solo. 
 
So indispensable was Rafi to Indian film music that music director OP 
Nayyar asked Rafi to sing the classical song "Man mora bawra" (film 
Ragini, 1958) in which singing star Kishore Kumar was the hero & the 
song was picturised on him. Rafi again playbacked for hero Kishore in 
film Shararat. The fact that even such a legendary singing star had to 
borrow Rafi's voice occasionally shows the extent of faith music 
directors had in Rafi. 
 
In this first Function of Spectrum Music, young upcoming singers 
rendered Rafi's solo and duet songs under orchestration of Satish 
Popli's "Doremi Orchestra". The commentary on Rafi's life (in between 
the songs) was scripted and compered jointly by Triloki Nath and Mamta 
Vani. 
For any further information contact: 
 
SLBhola 
SL Bhola, Founder, Spectrum Music, 
C-4/31 Sector 15, Rohini, Delhi-110089 
Phone: 011-2785-8827, Mob: 098918-74900, email:slbhola.2000 at gmail.com 
 
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