Tirur based out Saifullah Cholakkal living in harmony of legendary singer Mohammed Rafi opens up that his love affair with the legendary singer’s voice began when he listened to “Tumne Mujhe Dekha” as a five-year-old. Over the years, he has collected nearly 5,000 songs sung by Rafi, spanning vinyl records, cassettes, CDs, and DVDs
While the world marked the 101st birthday of legendary Mohammed Rafi on December 24, for aTirur based fan it was an intensely personal festival. Saifullah Cholakkal does not merely listen to Rafi.
He lives with him.
Over the past five decades, he has painstakingly collected nearly 5,000 songs sung by the legendary playback singer, spanning vinyl records, cassettes, CDs, and DVDs. “All the known songs, and most of the unknown ones, are with him” he says with quiet pride.
Reportedly, Cholakkal’s love affair with Rafi’s voice began long before the age of the Internet, and even before cassette tapes became common.
Born in 1962, he was barely five years old when he watched Shammi Kapoor’s Teesri Manzil in Malaysia and heard Tumne Mujhe Dekha. He did not understand Hindi then, but the voice stayed with him.
Guided by radio programmes on Radio Malaysia, Radio Singapore and Akashvani, and also by stories shared by his father Kutty Hassan, Cholakkal nurtured believing there was something divine in that voice.
“It was God’s own voice,” he says. “That is how his love for Rafi Saab began. And every time he listens to him, that love only intensifies adding that as he gently puts away some of his prized first-press records after playing Baharon Phool Barsao on his vintage 33-RPM Philips record player.
Among his hundreds of records are a few dozen first press editions. Some of them are enormously valuable, he says. There may be only a handful of Rafi fans in Kerala who possess nearly the entire Mohammed Rafi repertoire, missing barely 160-odd songs.
While he began listening to cassettes while living in Malaysia in the 1970s, his passion shifted to vinyl records after he returned to India. His longing to meet Rafi Saab was shattered when he passed away in 1980, the very year he landed in Kerala,
Cholakkal recalls.
It was his intense devotion to Rafi that endeared Cholakkal to the late Dharmendra, with whom he shared a warm camaraderie
“Rafi Saab’s voice modulation for any actor, especially for actors like Dharmendra and Shammi Kapoor, was inimitable,” he says.
He recalled once Dharamjee told him, ‘Bete, when you listen to the song Jaane kya dhoondhti rahti hai ye aankhen mujh mein, you will feel as if he is singing it himself.
Cholakkal has visited Rafi’s family many times and stood in sheer awe of the memorabilia housed in Rafi Mansion in Bandra. Adding that whenever he met Rafi Saab’s son Shahid Rafi and son-in-law Parvez Bhai, they were exceptionally kind, a reflection of the beautiful human being that Rafi Saab was.
Cholakkal finds Rafi Saab’s diction and vocal clarity inimitable and hopes that singers of the new generation will imbibe the legend’s humility. “And even after decades of listening to Rafi Saab,” he concludes, “his personal favourite song still remains Tumne Mujhe Dekha…”
News Edit KV Raman
