Two singers. One a young man in his early 30s, known more for his work in Marathi films, trying to gain a foothold in the Hindi film industry. The second a legend, arguably the greatest playback ...

As the world marks the 101st birthday of Mohammed Rafi on December 24, one man at Tirur celebrates it as a deeply personal festival. Saifullah Cholakkal does not merely listen to Rafi. He lives with ...

Mohammed Rafi’s first break as a singer came in 1942, when he sang the duet Goriye ni Heeriye ni with Zeenat Begum for composer Shyam Sunder in the Punjabi film Gul Baloch (1944). Since then, he sang ...

Mohammed Rafi, who passed away on July 31, 1980, was what a playback singer should ideally be - in one word, versatile. He could warble ghazals as soulfully as Talat Mahmood could, but infuse more ...

Dilip Kumar, in his memoir The Substance and the Shadow (2014), recalls an incident from 1962, soon after the conflict at the Indo-China border, where he and Mohd Rafi were present to entertain the ...

Mohammed Rafi remains the gold standard in the world of playback singing. Legendary Bollywood producer/director Manmohan Desai once called him the “Voice of God” — a testament to Rafi’s unparallelled ...

It was nothing but melody when Mohammed Rafi lent his voice. Even ordinary lyricists came across as poets because Rafi’s divine voice gave an identity to their work. He boosted the image of average ...