My most-loved childhood memories are of those lazy antakshari sessions with my family on those hot summer nights during the inevitable power cut, after dinner, caught between wanting to give in to those yawns and wishing those million buzzing mosquitoes away with our inspired warbling. Belonging to a fairly sizable family that held high-pitched discourses during dinner on who the better singer was amongst the ones that ruled the roost back then, -- those were the times when all the Alkas, Shabbirs and Udhases of the world didn't even merit a mention -- I learned to listen to the songs and understand what my family was trying to convey when it said, 'emotion', 'romance', 'feeling' (you know, with emphasis), 'that teasing quality', 'devotion' and suchlike, back when I barely knew what those words meant.
My family and I didn't agree on a lot of things, still don't (being the youngest, I am the class clown/rebel). But we learned to put all our differences aside on summer nights just so we had a chance to sneak in a favourite Rafi song when the others were thinking of the very same song and feeling superior for days afterward. To take the cue from the singer before me and start my turn with an ohoho, ohoho, ahaha (Deewana Hua Badal) and see the shock in everyone's eyes was compensation enough for all the reprimanding I received for two unbearable months every year. Not to mention all those arguments of 'That's NOT how the song starts!' - I was the loudest and the most vociferous in pointing out such unforgivable errors during those antakshari sessions.
By the time I was old enough to listen to and internalise Rafi's songs, he was long gone. But thanks to my family, All India Radio, Doordarshan and those cassettes we'd painstakingly save up rupee after rupee to buy, Rafi was always there. Rafi was a lot of firsts for me - he was my first brush with romance, he was my first sigh at the world's scheming ways, he was my first sob at a friend's callousness, he was my first disbelieving stare at how self-serving the world can be and he was my first attempt at trying to find a connection to God.
If there's a degree awarded to those who live their lives in, of and for Rafi's songs, I'd win it hands down.
Rafi redefined the alcoholic's lament as well as the drunken playboy's slurred proclamation of love for his beloved's honey lips. Rafi gave new meaning to a dejected lover's heartbreak as he gave voice to the philosopher's soulful hymn about life's pointlessness. Rafi became the playful yahoo swinging on vines to woo the doe-eyed leading lady as he did the shy poet whose tongue twisted upon itself when it was time to lay his heart bare to his lady love. Rafi was the meek, tolerant lover to the playful taunt of the classic pear-shaped heroine of yore as he was the gentle, persuasive charmer egging the nubile nymphet on to commit unheard of sins, eyes wide open. Rafi was the friend to a destitute begging for alms as he was the conduit to God for the lonely and the ostracised.
Oh, how we was the conduit to God. If there's one song (other than MSS's Bhaja Govindam) that makes me believe in divinity and submitting myself to a power that's beyond my comprehension, it's Rafi singing Duniya Na Bhaaye Mohe.
Rafi's voice is the song equivalent of the gentleman lover. Rafi's voice is the comfort of a cup of coffee on a rainy evening as it is the promise of sunshine the next morning. There are days when there is no force in the world that can lighten a load like listening to a Rafi song. Rafi's voice is pure romance. No, scratch that. If I can sum it up in one line, Rafi's voice is purity itself - in its most humble, unshakably dignified form.
Like I said earlier, I've been trying to get my thoughts on Rafi together for the better part of 30 years. And if I spend the rest of my life doing it, I'd consider it a life well lived.
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