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Born in a village near Amritsar in 1924, Mohammed Rafi was first inspired to sing by a travelling fakir. He would follow the fakir across his village, before going to train under a maestro some years later. He belonged to a conservative family, and his father was dead against the idea of singing for a living. Ironically, Rafi himself would wonder if he was a sinner several years later, after he had achieved success and fame in the field. He dissuaded his own children from following in his footsteps, and sent them off to London, to be as far away from the film industry as possible. His son, Shahid Rafi, spoke about his father childhood in Lahore, and his marriage to and separation from his cousin, Bashira.
In an interview with Vickey Lalwani on YouTube, Shahid said that he is putting together a biopic about his father with director Umesh Shukla. He said that the film will follow his journey from the beginning till the end. “I want to show how he started singing from the age of eight or nine, how he was inspired by a fakir who would walk through their neighbourhood in Lahore, playing a simple string instrument. My father would follow him around silently, taking in his voice. One day, the fakir asked him why he was following him around and not saying anything. My father told him that he had fallen in love with his voice, and had memorised the song the fakir used to sing. The fakir asked him to sing, and was impressed by his talent. He blessed my father, and said that he would go far.” In a 1977 interview with BBC Hindi, Rafi himself recalled the origins of his talent. He said, “I used to live in a small village near Amritsar, and a fakir used to visit often. He would sing for money. I used to love his voice, and I would follow him around for long distances. I developed a love for singing after listening to that fakir.”
Shahid continued, “But my grandfather was dead against the idea of him singing. He would say, ‘Marasiyon ka kaam nahi hai humara. Yeh galat kaam hai, yeh sab hum nahi karte (We are not singers, this is wrong)’. Our grandmother was very encouraging of him though. She said, ‘Tu fikar mat kar, main sambhal lungi (Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it).’ But my grandfather was against it. He cooled down after he heard my father’s voice in a Punjabi film, and then he himself said, ‘Sangeet ki jeet hui hai (In the end, music won)’.”
Rafi’s family moved to Lahore when he was still a child. His father set up a barbershop in the city, which is where a young Rafi trimmed beards and cut hair as a teenager. But he moved to Mumbai in the 1940s to pursue a career in the film industry after being ‘spotted’ by someone who worked at the radio station in Lahore. Although Rafi had sung for a few pre-Partition Punjabi films, he performed his first Hindi film song in 1945. However, his personal life was greatly impacted by the Partition. He decided to stay back in India because his career had taken off, but his wife, Bashira, wanted to remain in Lahore. They separated, but Rafi insisted on bringing his eldest son with him to India. Offering some more insight about his father’s early life and his first wife, he said, “She was related to dad. She was his cousin. She didn’t want to come to India. Dad asked her to come and stay with him, but she refused. Dad said, ‘Okay then, give me my son’.” Shahid said that he never knew that his older brother wasn’t his mother’s son until much later in his life. “My parents never treated him any differently. In fact, my mother seemed to love him more. He was always one of us, seven brothers,” Shahid said.
In his final interview, conducted with Star & Style only a few weeks before his death in 1980, Rafi spoke in more detail about his youth, and his conservative father. “I am a native of Lahore. I belong to a very orthodox and conservative Muslim family. I used to sing at friends’ places when I was only 15. During one such occasion, Nasir Khan, one of the top producer-actors at that time, spotted me and offered to take me to Bombay and groom me as a singer in films. Khansaab had asked my father for his permission. My father had refused the offer point blank since he frowned upon the very idea of my taking up singing in films as a career. I was being trained in classical music at that time by my guru Ustad Abdul Waheed Khan of Kirana. When Nasir Khan persisted with the offer, my elder brother convinced my Abaajaan to let me go to Bombay. With great reluctance my dad agreed to my pursuing a career as a singer in films.”
Recalling the good old days, Rafi continued, “Filmmaking wasn’t merely a business proposition during those days when institutions reigned supreme and freelancing hadn’t become popular in the film industry. Believe it or not, I used to be paid a meager amount of Rs 75 in those days for one song!”
“When I entered the line, there were, of course, popular singers like Saigal saab (KL Saigal), GM Durrani and Khan Mastan. Unka Khoobi yeh thi janab ki instead of considering me as yet an other competitor they encouraged me to give my best. In fact I remember the first time I met Saigal saab at Lahore where he had come to give a concert on the stage. The mike had failed at the last minute. While it was being set right, I was asked to keep the audience engaged by singing a couple of songs. I was only 15 then. I had not yet met Nasir Khan or Shyam Sundar. Saigal saab blessed me that day and predicted that a day would come when I would be a sought after singer,” Rafi said. The singer died at the age of 55 in 1980.
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