Mohammed Rafi Death Anniversary: 'He Resides In My Heart', Shahid Rafi Remembers His Father

Forty-five years ago, Mohammed Rafi underwent a transformation: that divinely mortal soul turned immortal. A peerless singer indeed, he is emotionally recalled by these three lyrically-apt songs: Tum mujhe yun bhula na paaoge , jab kabhi bhi sunoge geet mere, sang sang tum bhi gungunaaoge (Pagla Kahin Ka), Abhi na jaao chhodkar, ke dil abhi bhara nahin (Hum Dono) and finally, the optimistic Tere aane ki aas hai dost, shaam phir kyoon udaas hai dost, mehki mehki fiza yeh kehti hai, tu kahin aas paas hai dost (Aas Paas).

His colleagues have spoken reams about him over the decades. This time, Shahid Rafi, the youngest of his seven children, goes down the memory lane about his legendary father.

“I am the only surviving son of my father – all my brothers, who were based in London, passed away long ago,” says Shahid. “My sisters live in Mumbai. I was educated in London and so lived mostly away from home from the time I was nine years of age. I came back to Mumbai in November 1979, for my sister’s marriage and never went back. I was 19. In July, the following year, my father passed away. And so. at a level where I was very aware and also intimate with my father, I could only spend seven months with him!”

How was his relationship with his father? “Since we were a conservative family, we would always fear our father a bit, for that was how respect was also shown then,” smiled Shahid. “When we saw his car arrive, we would sneak into our rooms! And he would always ask our mother why we were so scared of him, because he never ever raised his voice at any of us! Why us, I have never ever heard him shout or yell at anyone. Even if he was angry at any of us because we had been naughty or for any other reason, he would simply become quiet and later tell my mother about it,” says Shahid.

“Dad did not want any of us to go into music,” Shahid goes on. “His argument was that if we thought of doing so, we should be as good as him or better as singers, and we all knew that was impossible! So none of us learnt music and we all went into business! After his death, many people suggested that I should take up the profession. I did start learning a bit of music, did some shows, but finally gave it up. I once sang on stage with Ruhan Kapoor, Mahendra Kapoor-saab’s son on the occasion of Naushad-saab’s death anniversary. We presented the song Kaisi haseen aaj bahaaron ki raat hai, which Kapoor-saab and my father had sung for Manoj Kumar and Dilip Kumar respectively in Aadmi.”

Recalling Rafi’s association with composers, Shahid goes on, “Naushad-saab was the music director my father was closest to, and would often visit us at home. I personally feel that he knew my father in and out as an artiste and as a human being. He explored my father’s range best — he gave him classical songs, folk numbers, light songs, sad litanies and masti bhare gaane. But my father considered every music director his guru, and would often say that all the composers and even every musician who played any instrument were his backbones, for without them no singer could exist. He sang the maximum number of songs for Laxmikant-Pyarelal and Shankar-Jaikishan.”

Stating that his father remains the only playback singer who would change his style for actors, Shahid stated, “He would always study the actors and their way of speaking and enacting songs. This is the reason why he sounded different for every actor, and you could not mistake his Shammi Kapoor songs with those for Dilip Kumar or someone else’s. I was told that when he sang for L-P, he seemed to have a different voice for Dharmendra, Sanjeev Kumar, Jeetendra and Rishi Kapoor. My father’s effort was there in all this as much as that of the composers he sang for, which is why he considered all of them his gurus!”

About how the industry’s perception of Rafi as a God-fearing farishta (angel), soft-spoken, humble and down-to-earth, Shahid maintains that it was “completely correct”. In fact, the first quality had a very interesting fallout that helped spread a mammoth myth — that Rafi was “finished” after Rajesh Khanna, Kishore Kumar and R.D. Burman individually and together became very popular from around 1970.

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Reveals the son, “In 1970-1971, my father went for Haj, and the maulanas there told him that he was sinning against Allah by singing in films. Being very God-fearing, he was demoralized and went to London instead of coming back to Mumbai and stayed there for almost six months, thinking of quitting music. That is when my brothers told him — Dad! Go back, music is what you were born for. You are no businessman and you cannot work for anyone else.”

Rafi was also one of the earliest to start doing shows — from way back in the 1950s. He started doing a lot of them in 60s, and there would be at least one annual trip to USA, UK and Canada. London and Amsterdam were his two compulsory venues. Every tour would take six to eight weeks, and almost no one waited for any singer that long.

“These were the more likely explanations that my father’s recordings reduced in the early and mid-‘70s rather than just a Kishore Kumar wave,” feels Shahid. “For example, there was this incidence where one hero refused to shoot because a song was to be recorded by some other singer since my father was leaving for a tour. My father had to oblige, learn and record the song very fast before he left!” But Shahid insists that on a personal level, Kishore was not just Rafi’s close friend and fan but also worshipped him as a singer.”

About his father’s daily habits, he tells us, “My father would wake up for his riyaaz around four every morning. Later, he became so busy in his profession that singing and song rehearsals themselves became like his riyaaz. He would go for morning walks and play badminton, though, but was very fond of eating which he had to curtail under medical advice. He was very particular about sleep and would retire around 9.30 p.m.”

Shahid tells us that he does not miss his father for an elementary reason: “He resides in my heart!”

And as he notes, “Many have termed my father as the greatest playback singer ever in Hindi cinema and an exceptional human being. And truly, he was both.”