HIS MAJESTY'S VOICE

HIS MAJESTY’S VOICE

By A S MURTY (asmurty2@rediffmail.com, rafimurty@gmail.com)

POSTED ON www.eternalrafi.com & www.rafi.co.in

Among the many boisterous fast songs sung by Mohd. Rafi Sahab, one song stands out as kingly as any can be. That song is the title song from the film RAAJKUMAR – Jaane Wale Zara Hoshiyar Yahan Ke Hum Hain Raajkumar. The song is picturised on the return of the prince to his kingdom from studies abroad and is so wonderfully picturised that one feels totally immersed in the sequence of events. Shammi Kapoor, the prince is atop a fully bedecked royal elephant, what with an entire band of trumpeteering band and scores of royal guards and aides in attendance. The setting is perfect for a royal entourage – the costumes, the glittering ornaments, the perfect lyrics and the fast paced music. The icing on the cake is once again the magical and shahanshahi rendering by Rafi Sahab. “Hoshiyaar, Hoshiyaar” echoes through the vast surroundings and through the entire route that the princely journey takes the viewers along. There is this ‘couldn’t care less’ attitude and a subtle message for the world that when a prince is taking a walk, the lesser beings beware. And lest anyone undermine the ‘king in the making’, he yells “Yahan Ke Hum Hain Raajkumar”. The subjects are reminded that the royalty affords him the centre-stage and that he has armies in front and at the back.

The first stanza proclaims that their ‘prince’ has toured the world and knows the “American” and “European” misdemeanors well enough. And dares anyone to come forward to test and be conquered. “Saari Duniya mein apni jaykaar” the prince emphatically declares. The second ‘antara’ gives the message that youthfulness and romanticism is with HIM alone and that HIS life story is fully colourful. The flow of masti and enjoyment is found in all the syllables and notations. The mood is of exuberance and celebration. One would notice that the frequent shouts of “OYE OYE” is there in all the three stanzas, but reaches a crescendo in the final stanza, where instead of these, the prince shouts it differently and in a reverberating fashion. The throwing of words in such ‘THHAT” and “DHOOM” cannot be found in any other song in such majestic manner. The prince has arrived and a future ‘KING’ is identified. LONG LIVE THE KING. LONG LIVE HIS MAJESTIC VOICE. That is Mohammed Rafi Sahab who cannot be replaced with anyone else when it comes to proclaiming one’s kingdom. The territory is well defined and he is the master of his subjects. And a king who is revered by his subjects, loved by the royalty and his royal army.

The song is therefore among the number one spot by all standards when it comes to boisterous and royal attitude. Take the other hits from the films of Shammi Kapoor – for instance the Junglee “Yahoo” (full throated yelling at the very best) and An Evening in Paris number – Aasman Se Aya Farishta (again the opening lines roaring from the sky above). They and many other songs are so highly placed songs that no singer would even dare to come near them, leave alone rendering them in such high voltage. But, this royale song from Rajkumar has the combination of all the high pitch and fast paced notes and the princely air around it that it cuts the winner’s tape easily, relegating many from such clan to be only ‘good competitors’.

I have often felt deeply distressed after Rafi Sahab’s departure in 1980 and could never relish the songs that came afterwards sans his voice. We have everything in life - a family, a source of income, children, friends - yet somewhere something was always missing. And that missing link is the unfathomable and the golden voice of Rafi Sahab. Often my thoughts brought me to a popular Urdu couplet : “TERE BAGAIR KISI CHEEZ KI KAMI TOH NAHIN, TERE BAGAIR TABIYAT UDAAS RAHTI HAI”. But then just as soon as these thoughts come and I listen to a few songs from Rafi Sahab’s collection that I have, the cheer returns back. I am sure most RAFIANS go through such phases each day in their lives. And between these thoughts, the princely feeling of being from such a royal descendancy creeps in yelling – YAHAN KE HUM HAI RAJKUMAR. Surely, we the RAFIANS have inherited the heritage of a kingdom, which is not the privilege of many more, and we are proud of the same.

RAFI FOUNDATION - HYDERABAD CHAPTER

THE RAFI FOUNDATION AT HYDERABAD

BY A.S. MURTY
(asmurty2@rediffmail.com)

Posted on www.mohdrafi.com and www.eternalrafi.com
and also available on my other blog:http://rafimurty.rediffiland.com/


Since the time the Rafi Foundation got going at Mumbai, followed by its Delhi Chapter’s birth, we at Hyderabad were mulling over the idea of forming the Hyderabad Chapter. Likeminded persons got to know one another through the pages of http://www.mohdrafi.com/ and also names of probable contacts were forwarded to us from Mumbai and Bangalore. It was by chance that I got to know first Mr. P. Narayanan from Bangalore on the website.

I had all along known only the songs of Rafi Sahab and was influenced since my own childhood by the uniqueness of this legendary singer. While I liked any good composition with good lyrics rendered in a class of its own by any singer, Rafi Sahab scored over the rest by his clarity, diction, softness and full of zeal and emotion in his songs. Such was the impact of his rendition that I had never the difficulty in understanding the mood of the song. Rafi Sahab conveyed it all through his voice. One need not see the movie from which a song was rendered. There it was for the entire world to relish the efforts put in by the producers, the directors, the story writers, the lyricists, the music directors and above all the actors. The entire picture is before our eyes – only the singer had to be Rafi Sahab.

It was through Mr. Narayanan Ji that I first got to know of the Rafi Foundation and its proposed activities. I was immediately drafted into this. I had no hesitation to announce my association with the Rafi Foundation. Slowly as we went about reading the various articles on the website and interacting with other “RAFIANS”, we got to know and understand more of our own tribe. Several notable names crop up in my mind – Mr. H.V. Gurumurthyji, Mr. B. Venkatadriji, Mr. Mohan Floraji, Mr. P. Haldarji, Mr. Hussein Sheikhji, Mr. Binu Nairji, etc. etc. It would take another twenty to twenty-five names if I were to name all the very active RAFIANS on the website. Mr. Narayanan introduced me to Mr. S. Ramakrishnaji, also from Hyderabad and we had a long conversation. Instantly we hit it off as I found to my pleasant surprise that Mr. Ramakrishna was not only an ardent fan of Rafi Sahab, but also a very vocal one. He is endowed with the best of musical knowledge. I started discussing these and other articles with my other two known RAFIAN friends Mr. R. Padmanabhan and Mr. A.V. Srinivasan who are my colleagues too. Then we learnt that another good friend of ours, Mr. N.R. Padmanabhan, too was a die-hard fan of Rafi Sahab. This was too good to be true. In my own backyard, I suddenly found an avalanche of Rafi Sahab’s fans – all with equal or more knowledge of Hindi film world, Rafi Sahab’s songs, etc. The first thing that we five did was to subscribe to the SARGAM magazine published by the Rafi Foundation from Mumbai. It was during the publication of the magazine’s first issue last year that we came in contact with Mr. Shirish Kulkarni. Again, the very first phone conversation that I had with Mr. Shirish Kulkarni, I knew that we had discovered a new friend who is equally devoted to the one name that we all adore – Mohammed Rafi Sahab.

We continued our socializing on the website and also through regular emails and phone calls between Hyderabad on one side and Bangalore, Mumbai, Chennai, New Delhi and other places on the other. I personally have made the best of friends in the recent times and all with a common agenda – that of propagating the works of Rafi Sahab. Though on the wrong side of the 50s, we decided not to let go of this wonderful phase in our lives and we began organizing our own meetings in Hyderabad. If on one Sunday all my other Hyderabadi “RAFIANS” would come to my house, we would all assemble at Mr. Ramakrishna’s house the next Sunday. We would spend a few hours singing songs of Rafi Sahab and also discussing how to expand our horizon. Again our friends Mr. Narayanan and Mr. Shirish Kulkarni gave us several “leads” of “Rafians” and we were on the phone the next moment contacting them, often with success. Most of the other “Rafians” may not be very active, but it does not dwarf their commitment to the common agenda that we have ahead of us.


And then came one of the best moments in our path so far, in the form of visit to Hyderabad by Mr. Shirish Kulkarni alongwith his friend from Mumbai Mr. Joseph D’Souza on a personal visit. They had however kept one full day for us before they left for a remote area on their personal work for the next two days. 25th January, 2008 was a day we will remember for all time to come. That day we had decided to assemble in the hotel room occupied by Mr. Shirish and Mr. Joseph. We rang up to other friends and we were also joined in by Mr. Mir Hasan Ali and Mr. Raghavendra Rao. It would be a record of sorts if I state here that we were all huddled up in that room on that day from 2.00 p.m. to 11.00 p.m. and all through we were singing Rafi Sahab’s songs and discussing the Rafi Foundation, the Bharat Ratna Award and other “RAFIANS” known to us. No one bothered about food, we were only interested in Rafi Sahab’s songs and his style of singing. Just an occasional cup of tea every few hours would suffice. No one bothered that each one of us had to go very long distances to reach our homes. Only one topic was central in our minds – RAFI SAHAB. Our families too did not ‘disturb’ us enquiring when we will return home. They all knew only Rafi Sahab will let us go and at an appropriate time. During the time we spent at the hotel room, Mr. Narayanan from Bangalore, Mr. Shashank Chickermane from Mumbai, Mr. Zareef Ahmed from New Delhi and others spoke to each of us. Names that were not known to one another only a few months back seemed so familiar and from within the family. This is the magic of Rafi Sahab. Bonds were created for eternity from the one and only – THE ETERNAL RAFI SAHAB.

And just as Rafi Sahab would have said “Ek Akela Thhak Jayega, Milkar Haath Baddhana, Saathi Haath Baddhana, Saathi Haath Baddhana”, we all took the solemn oath of working together to form the HYDERABAD CHAPTER of the RAFI FOUNDATION. A suitable name for this organization would be discussed shortly.
I and Mr. Ramakrishna have been contacting many more RAFIANS here in Hyderabad and the strength is swelling. Mr. Samarjeet Acharjee (just 27 years of age) is the latest entry into our fold (he has been a RAFIAN all his life and has even posted an article on http://www.eternalrafi.com/). There are several other plans in our mind and the following months will unfold them all.


TOHFA WOH MILA MUJHE, JISPAR DUNIYA KO NAAZ HAI
SAARE JAHAN SE KHOOBSORAT, RAFI TERA ANDAAZ HAI