Some Less Heard Gems of Mohammad Rafi – The Sad Romantic Solos: 1940s through 50s

Guest article by Ashok M Vaishnav wishing everyone a very Happy Valentine Day with Rafi’s sad romantic solos, extending his centenary celebrations

(Ashok M Vaishnav had sent this article for Rafi centenary celebrations in the calendar year 2024. But with series on Kalyanji-Anadnji and Usha Khanna added in, I could not squeeze this article in 2024. But Rafi’s oeuvre is limitless. Ashokji had earlier written a guest article in the Centenary Series titled Some Hidden Gems of Mohammad Rafi: The Romantic Solos. That was without any emphasis on their underlying mood. If you go over that article and hear those songs, their mood is neutral or happy. In the present article the emphasis is on ‘sad’ romantic solos. He further focuses on the 1940s and 1950s during which Ashokji located several hidden gems of Rafi that were sad romantic solos. Thus this is a companion article to his earlier article in the series. Ashokji was very understanding of my scheduling difficulties and agreed if it was published in 2025.

Valentine Day now has become a day of rejoicing. But romance is often very poignant, therefore, today seems to be the most befitting day for this article. Ashokji has gone great lengths to select less less heard songs for his post. In the process we are treated to some real hidden gems of Rafi. Wishing everyone a very melodious Valentine Day with this guest article by Ashokji.

A retired engineer, Ashokji is an avid fan of Rafi and a prolific guest writer on this blog. He is based out of Ahmedabad. Thank you Ashokji for another nice article from your pen. – AK)    

While working on Mohammad Rafi’s solo songs from the 1940s and 1950s, I was able to locate more sad songs from various music directors. In fact, by 1950, Mohammad Rafi had already recorded several universally popular romantic duets and solo sad songs, like Yahan badla wafa ka bewafai ke siva kya hai (Jugnu, 1947, with Noor Jehan – Music: Firoz Nizami), Ek dil ke tukade hazar hue (Pyar Ki Jeet, 1948 – Music: Husnlal Bhagatram) and Suhani raat dhal chuki na jaane tum kab aaoge (Dulari, 1949 – Music: Naushad). As can be expected in any typical normal distribution curve, there were both sad and happy romantic songs that could be considered “too obscure”. However, many songs have also been quite popular.

For the present article, I, therefore, decided to focus on the “not-so-happy”, less heard, romantic solos by Mohammad Rafi. While the 1950s are widely recognized as his vocal peak, showcasing exceptional tonal quality, wide range and genre versatility, the 1960s brought about a notable shift in these aspects. As such, I have chosen to concentrate on Mohammad Rafi’s sad solo songs from the 1940s and 1950s. In selecting the songs, I have excluded songs on the two extremes – either ‘quite obscure’ or ‘very popular’.

For arranging the songs, I have followed the ascending order of the year in which the films were released

1. Ae dil-e- nakaam ab jeene ki tamanna chhod de – Hamara Sansar (1945) – Lyrics: Ramesh Gupta – Music: Pt Govind Ram – Filmed on: Umakant

This song holds the distinction of being widely recognized as the maiden solo song by Mohammed Rafi.

The maiden song being a sad song, it seems the music directors had more faith in Rafi’s ability to deliver sad songs in his own innovative style.

2. Bahut mayus ho kar koocha-e-qatil se hum nikle – Ghoonghat (1946) – Lyrics: Ramesh Gupta – Music: Shankar Rao Vyas – Filmed on: Arun Kumar

As can be expected, these initial songs had balanced blends of vintage era orchestration and Rafi’s evolution of his own style of singing.

3. Ab wo hamare ho gaye – Safar (1946) – Lyrics: G S Nepali – Music: C Ramchandra – Filmed on: Kanu Ghosh

I had two other C Ramchandra sad solo songs for the selection – Kahke bhi na aaye tum (Safar, 1946) and the solo version Humko tumhara hi aasra, tum hamare ho na ho (Sajan, 1947 – Lyrics: Moti BA – Filmed on Ashok Kumar).

Of the two, initially I considered the first option to be more popular than the one I ultimately selected. The solo version of Humko tumhara hi aasra can be considered less popular, but the  duet version (with Lalita Deulkar – filmed on Ashok Kumar and Rehanaa) was quite popular. As such I filtered out the solo version, too, from the final selection and finally chose Ab wo hamare ho gaye for the present article.

4. Rahe to kaise rahe dil pe ikhtyaar mujhe – Room No 9 (1946) – Lyrics: Nakshab Jarachavi – Music: Rashid Atre – Filmed on: Shyam

The song is set to traditional qawwali style composition. As such, but for the lyrics, one may find it difficult to feel the traditional sad touch.

Shyam acted in about 30 films before his accidental death in 1951. Many old-timers believe that, besides being regarded as one of the most handsome leading men in Hindi cinema, Shyam was nearly as popular as the iconic triumvirate of the the 50s: Dilip Kumar, Dev Anand, and Raj Kapoor. He was particularly prolific in 1949 and 1950. In fact, I have three sad solo songs from 1949, rendered by Mohammad Rafi, filmed on Shyam.

5. Tere kuche mein armanon ki duniya le ke aaya hun – Dillagi (1949) – Lyrics: Shakeel Badayuni – Music: Naushad Ali – Filmed on: Shyaam

Dillagi is one of the most successful films by Shyam. In comparison to another Mohammad Rafi solo, Is duniya mein aye dil walon dil lagana khel nahin, the present song becomes a natural choice.

6. Jin raaton mein neend ud jaati hai – Raat Ki Rani (1949) – Lyrics: Arzoo Lakhnavi -Music: Hans Raj Behl – Filmed on: Shyaam

Mohammad Rafi has already evolved his own style of singing sad songs. The song runs in lower octave, but Rafi scales a couple of octaves higher in the beginning of the interlude, to easily slide back to the original scale.

After a short, unscheduled, detour to 1949, due to Shyam, presently we return to the regular chronological order.

7. Aye dil meri aahon mein – Actress (1948) – Lyrics: Naqshab Jarchavi – Music: Shyam Sundar – Filmed on: Prem Adeeb

In this case too, I have chosen the present song over another Mohammad Rafi solo from the same film – Hum apne dil ka fasaana unhein suna na sake.

8. Thukra ke humein chal diye – Baalam (1949) – Lyrics: Qamar Jalalabadi – Music: Husnlal-Bhagatram – Filmed on: Vaasti

In this case too, I have three more Mohammad Rafi’s sad solo songs to choose from, composed by Husnlal-Bhagatram.

1. Tum hamein bhool gaye (Baalam, 1949) would have been a choice if the coin would have tossed in its favour.
2. Mohabbat ke dhokhe mein koi na aaye (Badi Behen, 1949 – Lyrics: Rajendra Krishna – Filmed on Rahman) was easily filtered out, as it remains a popular song.
3. Teri yaad sataye ghadi ghadi (Bansuria, 1949 – Lyrics: Mulk Raj Bhakri – Filmed on: Randheer) can be considered as more popular than the two earlier songs from Baalam, leaning more towards “Mohabbat ke dhokhe mein” in terms of its appeal.

The selection of two songs from 1950, a pivotal year bridging the decades of the 40s and the 50s, have been included not because they are from the debut films of Madan Mohan and Sharmaji, a.k.a. Khayyam. Rather, these tracks are chosen as representative examples showcasing the musical styles and trends that would characterise these composers’ future works.

9. Hum ishq mein barbaad hain – Aankhein (1950) – Lyrics: Raja Mehndi Ali Khan – Music: Madan Mohan – Filmed on: Shekhar

With  Mukesh’s towering song like Preet laga ke maine ye phal paaya (Mukesh) in the film, Mohammad Rafi manages to sing a worthy song.

10. Akele mein woh ghabarate to honge – Biwi (1950) – Lyrics: Wali Sahab – Music: Sharmaji (Khayyam) – Not Picturised

This song was immensely popular, hence under normal circumstances this song would not qualify for inclusion in the list. But considering that it was the turn of the decade, the music director was using a pseudonym and the song was not picturised, it eminently fits here.

By the turn of the 1950s, almost all music directors who debuted in the 40s and continued in the golden period of the 50s and 60s, seemed to hit the golden track with regard to sad romantic solo songs of Mohammad Rafi. Nuashad had films like Deedar (1951), Aan (1952), Udan Khatola (1955) and Kohinoor (1960) (all with Dilip Kumar), Baiju Bawra (1952), Shabab (1954) and Sohni Mahiwal (1958) (all with Bharat Bhushan). Shankar-Jaikishan scored some great sad songs with Mohammad Rafi in Seema (1955) and Basant Bahar (1956), but these were not in the romantic genre. S D Burman started using Mohammad Rafi as his lead playback singer only from Pyasa (1957), but his romantic sad songs with Rafi could come in the next decade. On the other hand, Madan Mohan and Khayyam, who had entered in 1950, blossomed in the next decade with regard to the sad romantic solo songs of Mohammad Rafi.

With this broad picture, my search for Mohammad Rafi’s less heard romantic solos yielded these songs for the 50s:

11. Teri mehfil mein dil thame tera diwana aata hai – Sheesha (1952) – Lyrics: Umar Ansari – Music: Ghulam Mohammad – Filmed on: Sajjan

A difficult composition to even remember, so no wonder that song not very popular.

12. Tune mera yaar na milaya… main kya jaanu teri khudai – Shama Parwana (1953) – Lyrics: Majrooh Sultanpuri – Music: Husnlal-Bhagatram – Filmed on: Shammi Kapoor

Husnlal-Bhagatram had started using Mohammad Rafi’s voice very early in Rafi’s career and have scored several gems that remain well remembered. However, Shammi Kapoor had to wait till Tumsa Nahin Dekha (1957) for a changeover in his screen persona to hit the track of success and, in turn, open a new chapter in Mohammad Rafi’s career.

13. Hazaron rang badlega zamana na badlega mohabbat ka fasana – Shirin Farhad (1956) – Lyrics: Tanveer Naqvi – Music: S Mohinder – Filmed on: Pradeep Kumar

Personally, I would not classify this song as ‘less heard’. However, when looked from the perspective of Mohammad Rafi’s ’top ranking’ sad solos, this song may perhaps get the place in back rows.

14. Ye sach hai aye jahan walo humein jeena nahin aaya – Kal Hamara Hai (1959) – Lyrics: Shailendra – Music: Gajanan Karnad – Filmed on: Bharat Bhushan

This song, from just one film for which Gajanan Karnad, a noted violinist has scored music, is a real gem. The track of Bharat Bhushan getting great Rafi songs, irrespective of film’s fortune on box office continues.

More interestingly, the other song Gajanan Karnaad composed for the film was a melodious mujra, Irada qatl ka hai kya…… aise na dekho rasiya (Asha Bhosle – Lyrics: Shailendra). Other five songs for the film have been composed by Chitragupta.

15. Yun zindgi ke raste sanwaarte chale gaye – Love in Shimla (1960) Lyrics: Rajendra Krishna – Music: Iqbal Quereshi – Filmed on: Sadhana with Joy Mukherjee in a memory window.

I must confess that my auto-select song was Main apne aap se ghabara gaya hun (Bindiya, 1960 – Lyrics: Rajendra Krishna – Music: Iqbal Quereshi). However, to classify the song as ‘less heard’ would have been gross injustice to the song. So, I stretched myself a little more and could easily locate the present song.

It is interesting to watch the evolving style of Mohammad Rafi’s sad songs composition during the 50s in comparison to the 40s in even such a limited view. However, the 60s was to further shape marked changes in the song composition style, driven by rise of new heroes, new formats of film stories, and the music directors too adapting their styles to the new mood, coupled with gradually coming of the generation born in the 50s. To see how it impacted Mohammad Rafi’s sad songs, we will take up Mohammad Rafi’s less heard solo songs during the ‘60s at next opportune occasion in future.

In the meanwhile, I look forward to the enlightened SoY readers to enrich Mohammad Rafi’s less-heard songs with more songs.

Credits and Disclaimers:

1. Mohammad Rafi’s songs, the excellent spreadsheet compiled by Muveen – for mentioning the actor on whom the song has been filmed

2. The song links have been embedded from the YouTube only for the listening pleasure of music lovers. This blog claims no copyright over these songs, which vests with the respective copyright holders.

3. The photograph is taken from the internet, duly recognising the full copyrights for the same to the either original creator or the site where they were originally displayed.