Guest article by Subodh C Agrawal
(My friend Subodh Agrawal is a great lover of music, he wields a fluent pen, and knows a good deal about classical music. Being among the earliest ones to be a part of SOY journey, he had accepted my request to write a series on film songs based on classical raags. It is difficult to believe that once upon a time he was an active contributor to the Songs Of Yore. For the last few years, he has been in hibernation, his only excuse being he was not feeling like writing anything. His last guest article for SOY was more than four years ago. I am happy that Rafi’s centenary has woken him up from his deep slumber.
For newcomers to the SOY, Subodh is from UP, worked in Punjab and Delhi, and after retirement, is settled at Chandigarh.
Subodh writes on a serious subject with a light touch which you see in his very first sentence. In fact the subject line in his mail mentioned, Kumbhkarn has woken up! The article was too late to be scheduled in the 2024, but it was too good to be left out. Some more Rafi-fans also had sent me their tributes somewhat late, hence I am pleased to extend the Rafi centenary celebrations. Thank you, Subodh for finally giving this pleasant surprise. – AK)
The birth centenary of Mohammad Rafi (December 24, 2024) has pulled me out of my Kumbhkarn like slumber. I don’t even remember when I contributed my last article to this platform. My apologies to those who expected more from me. Hopefully this article will make up for the delay.
When one thinks of classical songs by male singers in Hindi films, Manna Dey’s name automatically springs to mind – and rightly so. He has given us some of the greatest classical based songs: ‘Poochho na kaise maine rain bitaayee’, ‘Laga chunari mein daag’, ‘Jhanak jhanak tori baaje payaliya’ to name just a few. However, the classical songs of Rafi are no less. His name is not so easily identified with classical songs because of his amazingly wide range. The songs in the list below show that he was not lacking in the skill needed to do full justice to classical ragas.READ THE FULL ARTICLE
Where is the mukhada gone, where is antara gone? For most of the history of Hindi film songs they did not go anywhere, they remained rooted where they were supposed to be. The classic structure of our songs was a mukhada with a catchy tune and refrain. This was followed by interlude music and two or three antaras with different tunes from the mukhada. Each antara would end with a connector line which would neatly segue into the mukhada/refrain.