Continuing Rafi’s centenary celebrations, guest article by Sivanandam Palamadai on his songs picturised on not-so-famous actors
(Songs Of Yore has been celebrating Rafi’s centenary year 2024 with a series of articles, some by guest authors. Sivanandam Palamdai, who is one of Rafi’s prominent fans in blogosphere, now writes on his songs for not-so-famous actors. We selected this topic after some mutual back and forth discussion which he describes in some detail in the beginning of his article. But he has modestly not mentioned one development which as the host I must, that shows his utmost dedication and sincerity. After we had settled on this topic, he suffered some serious medical condition requiring hospitalisation. I had no inkling of this until I pinged him after a couple of months how he was doing. Despite my requesting him to forget the article and concentrate on his health, he came up with this brilliant piece as soon as his physical condition permitted.
Mr Palamdai has been a marketing professional, now based out of Pune for about 28 years in semi-retirement by choice. I convey my thanks to him on behalf of all the readers for the painstaking efforts he has taken to write this excellent article. – AK)
Almost two years back, I had written my first blog for SOY on the theme of Rafi’s songs for unrecognised composers. In this birth centenary year of the legend Mohammad Rafi, AK Ji and myself were discussing on something similar and it was AK Ji who came out with the brilliant idea of focusing on his songs for those actors who were not the top heroes. Writing for SOY is always a privilege and I thank AK Ji for providing me an opportunity to continue my blogs here.
The initial idea was to select one song for all the top heroes, but we felt that would be a huge list and selecting one song would be a difficult task. Hence we decided to rather focus on those actors who were not among the top heroes. I had initially titled this article as Rafi’s songs for lesser-known and obscure actors, but that may lead to some debate as some of the actors cannot be categorized as lesser-known. You will understand once you got through the article. That is the reason I changed this to “Not the top heroes”! The language may appear not so elegant but would describe the category perfectly.READ THE FULL ARTICLE
When AK Ji wrote to me asking whether I would be interested in writing an article on Rafi on his centenary year, I was elated beyond words. This is a task that I would consider a blessing from the heavens! The year 2024 marks the birth centenary year of the legendary Rafi sahab and I do not know when AK ji would be publishing this, but let us celebrate Rafi throughout the year. I do not think Rafi needs any introduction to the very knowledgeable readers of SOY and so I will skip even a brief biography. In his glorious career of around 35 years, he won the hearts of the listeners not only with his singing but, more importantly, with his humbleness and humanitarian character he earned people’s love and respect. There can be personal likes and dislikes on music composers, singers, lyricists etc, but it is indeed rare to find anyone talk anything negative about Rafi, the human being. The way he could emote the song depending on the mood and actor on whom it was picturised is legendary and one can say that he created a unique style of playback singing.