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 you think of Kalyanji-Anandji’s main playback singers, Mukesh comes to mind first. They seemed to be made for each other, and there is already a post on 
Our elections are now over after a most toxic campaign. When the two formations were not abusing each other they were competing in promising the electorate moon. Voters seem to have now become smart. They must have realised that most of the promises would not be, cannot be fulfilled. There is no free lunch; if someone offers something free, something else has to give way. But one of the two principal rivals came up with a nice tagline: “My guarantee also means a guarantee that the guarantee would be fulfilled.” That is a good one, something like “Raj Raj Raj & Company”. In Shree 420 the dreams of the people were fulfilled, in the real world the voters have to wait for the bounties promised to them.
When I started this blog I never imagined that it would go on for so long. And it is not just clocking year after year. Songs of Yore is perhaps the only place where you will find a comprehensive series on 
In KL Saigal’s active years, the Best Male Singer was generally a one-horse race. He has sung great songs in 1941, too, in the film Lagan. Yet he is not a runaway winner. Nay, I would say with Doctor (1941) in which Pankaj Mullick appears as an actor-singer and the music director, he came up with a score of a lifetime. With six immortal solos from this film which I have included in the 
In my series of articles on 
The regulars of SOY who have been following year-wise reviews of the best songs of the year would have noticed an interesting feature. Every vintage year was characterised by some film(s) whose music became timeless. If we had Rattan in 1944 by Naushad, we had Kismet and Tansen in 1943, and Basant and Bhakt Surdas in 1942. 1941 too is no exception. If KL Saigal is there in a year, you can expect some everlasting songs. But besides Lagan (1941), Doctor helmed by the actor-singer Pankaj Mullick from New Theatres turned out to be an artistic and musical masterpiece. It is remarkable that New Theatres achieved that with a social message.
The world of science is replete with cases where some great inventions happened from inadvertent errors. One most famous example is that of Penicillin. Sir Alexander Fleming was working on a cure for Pneumonia, rampant during WWI. In 1928, Dr Fleming observed that a particular type of mould growing on a Petri-dish of Staphylococcus bacteria seemed to be preventing the bacteria around it from growing. We know that accidental discovery of the mould as almost cure-all, Penicillin.
Ramprasad Sharma (1900 -1995) belonged to Gorakhpur in the then United Provinces (present day Uttar Pradesh). The band master of Bharatpur State recognised Ramprasad’s flare for instrumental music. He played the trumpet here. He then played in Agra Military Band. This groomed him into the art of music arrangement to rise to the position of Band Master in a circus. He toured Delhi, Lahore and Calcutta with the circus. He settled for some time in Calcutta and worked for Columbia and New Theatres. At that stage, he mastered playing ten instruments and had acquired good knowledge of intricacies of classical raags.