The long playing legends

As two of the most recorded voices of the last 100 years, Mohammed Rafi and Kishore Kumar enjoy a flourishing musical afterlife in the thousands of recordings that are close to the hearts of their legions of aficionados

When I was a child, my collection of LP (Long Playing) records, replenished in the 70s with the more-compact audio cassettes, comprised an enviable stack of Mukesh, Rafi and Kishore songs. My friend, Aftab (an aspiring cricketer who wanted to play for India and not just for the Madhuban building team) and I would have animated discussions u2014 they seem so childish in retrospect but you have to make concessions for youth about who was a more effective singer between Rafi and Kishore.

Today, I feel both Rafi and Kishore can provide a dose of sonic tonic anytime one wants. Mohammed Rafi passed away in 1980, four years after Mukesh. The genial singer was only 55 when he died, but what an incredible body of work he has left behind.

I never fail to marvel at Rafi's ability to sing high-pitched songs ('O duniya ke rakhwale' 'Insaaf ka mandir hai, bhagwan ka ghar hai') and yet retain total control over his rendition. At the same time, and sometimes in the same song, it is intriguing how he lovingly caresses certain notes ('Ak-ele ak-ele kahan jaa rahe ho') to create aural ambrosia.

Rafi could effortlessly jump genres without missing a beat and that is what made him a dominant singer for decades. Not only was he able to sing across octaves, but he was also a vocal chameleon who could adapt to the different styles of Hindi film music. Rafi could sing a classical number ('Nache man mora, magan tikdha dhigi dhigi' or 'Madhuban mein Radhika naache re') with as much felicity as a pop number ('Aaja aaja main hoon pyaar tera'). He could deftly distillate the meaning from a deeply philosophical number ('Mann re tu kaahe na dheer dhare') and sound just as perfectly right for it as he was for a skittish dance number ('Nain lad jaye hai toh').

But Rafi too paid his dues, enduring a period of struggle. Starting out in the chorus in the 1940s, Rafi's obvious talents gradually marked him out for better prospects. By the close of the decade he was an in-demand singer especially after his Jugnu duet with Nurjehan 'Yahan badla wafaa ka'. Playback singer Sharda (of 'Titli udi' fame) had told me, "Whenever 'Yahan badla wafaa ka' would play at the tea-shop near my house in Tanjore, I would run to the terrace to hear it. It was a magnetic number." The late Mahendra Kapoor, a huge admirer of Rafi, remembered purchasing a record of the song but to his dismay "in those days, the record didn't have the singer's name". Kapoor had to make many inquiries before he discovered that the name of the singer was Mohammed Rafi.

Soon, however, Rafi had become a household name. In 1952, Rafi's jugalbandi with Naushad in Aan and Baiju Bawra (in the latter, Bharat Bhushan played Tansen's competitor and Rafi's vocals made it believable) took him to the next level of fame. Significantly, while Rafi's contemporaries like Kishore, Mukesh and Talat Mahmood sidelined their playback singing careers for their acting ambitions, Rafi remained focussed on his singing career.

By the 1960s, Rafi was the reigning male playback singer, who was the regular singing voice for most of the decade's heroes be it Dilip Kumar, Shammi Kapoor, Rajendra Kumar, Pradeep Kumar, Joy Mukherjee, Shashi Kapoor and Dharmendra.

Yet, Rafi remained famous for being humble. Veteran music director Ravi told me how "Rafi saab wept during the rehearsals of the bidaai song 'Babul ki duayen leti jaa'." Rafi also had time to collaborate with new music directors resulting in iridescent gems like Sardar Malik's 'Tere hum o sanam' or S Madan 's 'Yeh raat yeh fizayein'."u00a0u00a0

The Kishore tidal wave in the 1970s did affect Rafi. Yet, the hits continued to roll out, albeit less frequently. 'Re mama re mama re', 'Aaj mausam bada beiman hai', 'Teri bindiya re', 'Ek daal par tota bole' are just some of his early 1970s hits. In 1977, Rafi staged a major comeback with Amar Akbar Anthony ('Parda hai parda') and Hum Kisise Kam Nahin (the title qawwali). He also bagged the National Award for the latter film's rather maudlin 'Kya hua tera vaada'.

It was back to recording pitch-perfect hits for Rafi as Sargam, Suhaag, Asha, Naseeb crowded his already golden oeuvre. But it was all too short; in 1980 Rafi's rich voice was stilled forever, even as his latest hit 'Dard-e-dil' from Karz with the poignant line 'Aur thodi der mein bas hum juda ho jayenge' clogged the airwaves.
While many attempt to pit Rafi against Kishore; fact remains that they have sung together in enough songs ('Ek rastaa, do rahee', 'Bane chahe dushman') in 1970s-1980s style multistarrers to suggest a certain amount of bonhomie.

Like Rafi, Kishore too enjoyed a highly successful career that spanned decades. Born Abhas Kumar Ganguly, he came to Mumbai in the footsteps of his elder (by 19 years) brother Ashok Kumar. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the barely-in-his-twenties Kishore had to struggle hard to find his groove. This despite crooning with carefully calibrated finesse songs such as 'Marne ki duayein kyun maangoon' for Dev, 'Woh meri taraf yun chale aa rahe hai' for his brother as well as the typically madcap 'Kusoor aapka, mera naam lijiye na mere baap ka' from Vyjayanthimala's 1951 debut, Bahar.

From being the playback singer in a Vyjayanthimala film, Kishore quickly graduated to being her hero in the next AVM venture, Ladki (1953). The success of this film and Kishore's frantic antics launched him as a comic hero. Subsequent hits as a singing-star: New Delhi ('Nakhrewali'), Asha ('Eena Meena Deeka'), Delhi Ka Thug ('Yeh raatein yeh mausam') and Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi ('Paanch rupaiya barah aana') made Kishore arguably the biggest male star of the fifties after the Raj-Dilip-Dev trio.

Kishore's blazingly successful acting career put a screeching brake on his playback singing career, which had also caught fire (courtesy his ear-tugging pairing with Dev Anand in 'Jeevan ke safar mein rahee', 'Chhod do aanchal', 'Hum hai rahee pyar ke' etc). After 1957 and until 1964, Kishore stopped singing for any other hero besides himself, to concentrate on his booming acting career.

Ironically, in this phase, Kishore had even to occasionally rely on Rafi to give playback for songs lip-synced by him onscreen 'Ajab hai dastaan' (Shararat), 'Man mora banwra' (Ragini) and the eminently forgettable 'Apni aadat hai' (Pyar Deewana).u00a0

u00a0The mid-sixties downturn in Kishore's acting career saw him return to playback singing with a vengeance. The Burmans (SD and RD) helped him out with fabulous songs in Teen Deviyan ('Khhwab ho tum'), Guide ('Gaata rahe mera dil'), Jewel Thief ('Aasmaan ke neeche') and Padosan ('Mere saamnewali khidki mein'), till the Aradhana songs 'Mere sapno ki rani' and 'Roop tera mastana' skyrocketed him to the topmost echeleons at the close of the decade. His voice had a certain innate joie de vivre that was infectious. Kishore became the vocal alter ego for the decade's superstars u2014 first Rajesh Khanna and later Amitabh Bachchan ('My name is Anthony Gonzalves', 'Khaike paan Banaraswala', 'Salaam-e-ishq meri jaan').

I grew up listening to Kishore in my teens so I have several unalienable memories associated with many of his songs. Kishore was excellent at heartfelt romantic numbers ('Bhool gaya sab kuch'), zany yodelling ('Zindagi ek safar hai suhaana') and gobbledegook ('Aake seedhi lagi dil pe' from Naughty Boy, which he sang in both the male and female voices; and about which son Sumeet remembers, "Originally, Lataji (Mangeshkar) was to sing the female version, but she couldn't make it to the recording and the rest, as they say, is history"). But what has also stayed with me over the decades is the softer Kishore who captured the emotional undulations of 'O mere dil ke chayen' from Mere Jeevan Saathi or 'Aaye tum yaad mujhe' and 'Badi suni suni hai', both from Mili.
Kishore remained popular through the next decade and a half. He coasted the Bappi wave of the 1980s, singing the Himmatwala-Mawaali-Tohfa style masala numbers as well as the high-energy Namak Halal-Sharaabi songs. There were several newcomers on the scene by now but Kishore was in a class by himself he won the Filmfare award for four years consecutively between 1982 and 1985. He was at the top of the game at his 1987 death at the age of 58, proving once again that legends are not always forgotten in their own lifetime.

In fact, as two of the most recorded voices of the last 100 years, Rafi and Kishore enjoy a flourishing musical afterlife in the thousands of recordings that are close to the hearts of their legions of aficionados. They may have never lived to be considered senior citizens; but Mukesh, Rafi and Kishore enjoyed a full and fulfilling career as expansive as the three octaves.

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