When we see his voice sit ‘pat’ on Dilip Kumar and Dev Anand who started out in the ’40s through Shammi Kapoor, Dharmendra and Rishi Kapoor and then go perfectly on someone like Govinda in the 1989 Farz Ki Jung, we realise that Mohammed Rafi and his effortless vocal magic transcends time. But there is more to Rafi than just his huge musical treasury – he is as relevant today as he was in his lifetime, and has been so for 30 years since he passed away on July 31, 1980.
Rafi lives on…
Why is Mohammed Rafi relevant today? To understand that, we must study and analyse exactly what happened after Rafi passed away, when right at the top. Not only did he deliver multiple chartbusters in 1980 (Karz, Aap To Aise Na The) itself, he also dominated several big-ticket scores in that year (Aasha, Dostana, Ram Balram, The Burning Train, Shaan, Swayamwar, Kali Ghata, Do Premee and Aap Ke Deewane) with or without his good buddy, ardent fan, professional colleague and media-declared “rival” Kishore Kumar.
After this, his songs in big films were a regular till late 1982, and he had major chartbusters and popular numbers after his death (Shaan, Dostana, Ram Balram, Do Premee, Kaatilon Ke Kaatil, Professor Pyarelal, Naseeb, Kranti, Hum Paanch, Aas Paas, Ladies Tailor, Kudrat, Rajput, Desh Premee, Insaan, Poonam, Zamaane Ko Dikhaana Hai).
More songs in delayed films kept coming for almost a decade with Farz Ki Jung, where Bappi Lahiri’s song Phool ka shabab kya in the late ’70s for another film, was filmed on Govinda in 1989.
As late as this year, Madan Mohan’s unreleased Tere baghair was included in a Yash Raj Music album of that name, while Universal released an entire unreleased and Rafi-based film score composed by Chitragupta. A Naushad-composed devotional track or two and a song that Rafi had recorded for his Habba Khatoon, a film that was never made, were also released at various points in the last decade, and Rafi – bhakts await the day when J.P. Dutta agrees to release the title song of his first film Sarhad, a Sahir-Laxmikant-Pyarelal number that Rafi had raved about on record in his interviews in the late 1970s.
And last but not the least, let us not forget that 30 years after his death, dozens of Rafi-based orchestras still play to packed houses in India and outside.
-Agencies