PHILANTHROPIC DEXTERITY OF RAFI SAHAAB

For long time God Himself wanted to sing very badly, wanted to entertain others and he was wondering how to go about it, so he gave birth to a boy on 24th December 1924 and the boy was named as Mohammad Rafi….He fulfilled the desire of God with gr8test ability…

I would like to share 2 pieces of information about Rafi saab, 1 was with Naushad saab..

Rafi saab's noble benevolent nature is very well known to all of us...During Royalty issue as we all know, his noble nature again was proved when he had a tiff with Lata Ji and they both did not sing any song for many years, which was a loss for we music lovers even more...He gave money to poor and needy people and charged free for composers who were new or did not have money to pay his fees or when he liked the tunes very much composed by any composer…

Another example, I cite here is, During Rafi saab's struggling days earlier in his life, he had recorded a song with Naushad saab and after completion of the days work, everybody went home.. Naushad saab completed his rest of the work for the day and came out of recording studio after 2 hrs when everyone had left..

He was taken aback to see Rafi saab still standing outside recording studio for 2 hrs, naushad saab enquired, what was the reason of his waiting outside for 2 hrs, Rafi saab politedly replied, I dont have money to go back home, Naushad saab replied then you should have asked from me, Rafi saab said, No, I havent completed the recording of all the songs as yet, I have completed only today’s work and not all the songs. so till then I have no moral right over my fees, after hearing this, Naushad saab was just stunned, with tearful eyes he looked at Rafi saab not knowing how to react and thought of Rafi saab's goodness and noble thoughts.. He was suffocated by his goodness and noble nature…Can we see any man/woman these days, on the contrary people fight for their money/ fees in advance, its rare to find such good qualities in present generation...We always think of Rafi saab as No.1 singer, but he was a No.1 Human Being too...

Today it may not be a proper day to share as to what had happened on 31st July 1980, but still it has crossed my mind so I am writing the second piece of information which many of you may be knowing which was the last day “of this God” having entertained people for soo many yrs, so he decided to bid goodbye..

After his sad demise, as we all know, the next 2 days were declared national holidays..When he died, all the people in India including the skies were crying heavily as there was a heavy rainfall..

People from all caste, creed, religion, race, be it hindu, muslim, christian, sikh, all of them wanted to enter his burial ground and see HIM for the last time, but the crowd was so huge and there was no place to enter the burial ground, So people chose irrespective of the social status, couldn’t control there emotions and went overboared by climbing the burial ground cemetry through pieces of glasses which were planted over the walls for the security reasons, they climbed those walls of cemetry by hurting their hands because of glass pieces and went with there injured hands and hearts to take a 1 handful of soil where he was buried as a memory forever to carry home....All those, who have heared his songs are lucky…

Do Teachers hold an Esteemed Position in the Society?

            ‘Teaching is a noble profession’- this adage is well known.  Esteem means

to think highly of, a favourable opinion and respect. All said and done about

teachers we cannot deny the fact that ‘Teachers’ do hold an esteemed position in

the society. In Ancient India during the Vedic times the Guru was likened to

Brahma, Vishnu & Mahesh. But today the very concept of teacher and teaching

has found a new dimension and perspective to it. Aims and goals of education

have changed and technology explosion also has changed all that a ‘Teacher’

symbolized and stood for.

            In the early 20^th Century (Our Country was then ruled by the British) the

society was basically simple. But with the advent of higher education,

industrialization and demand for skilled labour brought forth the importance of

the English language in the society. English became an international language, a

language for higher education. Teaching became a skilled art and teacher’s

training gained importance. Today it is mandatory for a teacher to be trained in

education. This scenario was very different from the Vedic times where education

was basically religious. They did not include subjects like Astronomy, Physics

and Math’s. Teacher was the pivotal centre and everything focused around the

teacher. In short the teacher was all important and all knowing. Today we talk of

child centered education and the learner is the focus in the teaching- learning

process. Hence this question has often arisen whether the teacher holds that same

esteemed position like the one it had before.

            There is a great boom of information in the age we are living today. Any

type of information and the any amount of information can be obtained by the

click of a computer button. There is so much printed material for anything and

everything. Modern Schools today thrive on technology and most of the

classrooms are taught by power point presentations. The personal touch of the

teacher is definitely missing. Education today is functioning corporate style. Big

Money has entered in the field of education. One feels that they can give the

money and get the best of schools and institutes to qualify and have A Grade

academic achievements. Teacher is also a product put up for sale. It is sad because

somewhere down the line we should realize that the teachers not only teach

but enlightens the minds of the young. Teacher helps in character building, a

constant source of motivation and inspiration which ‘Teaching Machines’ cannot

provide.

            Since Independence all stalwarts of education have put forth their

recommendations to improve the education system of our country. We are striving

hard to make our country literate. The contribution of teachers is a Herculean as

they are responsible in building the nation. We cannot undermine the importance

and status of a Teacher. It is very unfortunate in our country that teachers are the

most neglected lot and poorly paid compared to other professions. This has

resulted in the downfall from their esteemed position. The quality of teachers in

our country today is also very pathetic. This also has brought down the self

respect of a Teacher. Things have changed and will also definitely change for

better. We will see the glory and status of a teachers revive like our glorious past.     

Harmony with melody

                                              

                                   

It is a well- known fact Raja Harishchandra was the first Indian feature film released in 1913 which made the great Dada Saheb Phalke, the father and pioneer of Indian Film industry, however the silent era didn’t contain any songs until 1931 Alam Ara came which was the first talkie. At the most the silent era movies had a background score but no songs. The initial stages of talkies era had songs; however there was no concept of a recording studio nor of play-back singing. This procedure due to inept technology then, made recording of the songs even more onerous and unprofessional as the actors had to themselves sing their own songs and the orchestration group were featured in the songs, wherein the hero and the heroine also the audiences had to conveniently ignore their presence, as if they are unobtrusive.  Sounding strange? Yes it does today, but not those days.  The musical journey of Hindi Film Music has undergone a sea change since 1930s. As the advent progressed further for talkies, there was a golden era setting in, having singers/actors like KL Saigal, Pankaj Mullick and even noted singer KC dey whose names we take in the same breath as far as that epoch is concerned. Among the female ones, to name a few, we had Zohrabai  Ambalewali, Rajkumari, Amirbai Karnatki, Shamshad Begum, Suraiya and most famously NoorJehan who migrated to Pakistan later, to create an unfilled gap for our Indian Music post 50s. Though actors of that aeon weren’t professional trained singers who had to lip their own voices, however KL Saigal and Pankaj Mullick were the ones who were not just actors, but professional singers besides being composers. Noorjehan and Surraiya were songstresses and actresses among the female lot of that era.  Some other noted composers to mention who gave Saigal Saab a lot many gems were Khemchand Prakash, RC Boral, other than Pankaj Mullick himself who gave a lot of pie of his creations to Saigal. These two  legendary singers went on to become inspirational figures for the later generation great crooners like Lata, Mukesh, Kishore Kumar, Mohd Rafi and Hemant kumar too who was known as “Chhota Pankaj Mullick “ as he was bedazzled by him. In fact Mullick was the one who made Hemant Kumar draw his proclivities towards Rabindra Sangeet.

                                After the pioneers of singing like Saigal, Pankaj Mullick , the scene shifted to, Lata, Rafi, Asha, Kishore, Mukesh, Hemant, Talat, Manna dey who carved out their own niche and many still opine 50s, 60s era as “ The Golden Era of Music”.  And besides these singers, who can forget the splendiferous composers like SD burman, Madan Mohan, C Ramchand, OP Nayyar, Naushad, Shankar- Jaikishan who were considered one of the unprecedented giant composers of that stage, other than the underrated yet talented ones like Husnalal-Bhagatram, Hansraj Behl, Jaidev, Khayyam Kalyanji-Anandji, N Dutta, Chitragupt, Ravi, Iqbal Qureshi, Sapan-Jagmohan, Sonik-Omi and many more. In fact all came up with stupendous gems and canonizing only one as the BEST COMPOSER or terming anyone as UNDERRATED COMPOSER was an injustice to others. Later came in the 70s era with RD Burman- Kishore Kumar ruling the roost and Kishore kumar hands down completely dominated the market in 70s, much of the goodwill by then superstar Rajesh Khanna who termed Kishore as his official voice. The advent of Aradhana song Mere sapnon ki rani kab from SD Burman made Rajesh Khanna- Kishore Kumar overnight superstars. However often the westernization of music is ascribed to RD Burman, but before that it were Shankar- Jaikishan to bring it more in prominence in late 60s for suiting Shammi Kapoor's on-screen Elvis Presley-like rock star image. And even before Shankar-Jaikishan it was the versatile composer C Ramchand who was music director ahead of his times and a modern thinker who broke the traditional shackles with Gore gore baanki chore, Albela songs like Shola joh bhadke, Aana meri jaan Sunday to Sunday, Eena Meena Deeka and many more club songs. However it was none other than Shri Pankaj Mullick who brought western music for the first time in Hindi Film Music with Pran chahe Naina chaahe which was a non-filmy song way back in 1940. Despite being confining to traditional Rabindra Sangeet precepts, he opted to do this change which was quite shocking yet welcoming for those days.  Then came in the 80s which had Laxmikanth Pyarelal and Bappi Lahiri who had their share of success, but melody had taken a back seat with rhythm beats taking much precedence. The respite breather came in with 90s Nadeem Shravan- Kumar Sanu – Alka Yagnik songs which were rage those days and it was all the way Kumar Sanu who was the king in 90s, with Aashiqui, Dil hain ki manta nai, Sadak, Saajan to name a few.  Other good singers too like Udit Narayan, Sonu Nigam, Abhijit  etc came into the limelight latter.

FACEBOOK- A CURSE THAT SHOULD BE BANNED

Dear Audience

                        We live in a society today which is vortexed with social networking websites which is now not just beholden to the younger generation as well as old. The older lot loves to re-connect to their loved ones and progenies on social sites. The craze started from Orkut where it picked up the popularity in 2005-06 which was incepted by Orkut Büyükkökten a Turkish software engineer who intended to do so to re-connect to his lost girl friend who is now his wife. The very purpose paid off well contrary to the very perception by himself that it would be marred. The rage of Orkut continued to be till 2008-09 until Facebook came to the social networking fraternity which was founded by Mark Zuckerberg. It caught the eyeballs of the youngsters with many better features with options of LIKE, COMMENT, SHARE. Over the period of time Orkut literally has now got buried and Facebook has reached a hysterical rage with twitter, albeit the latter having a limited audiences of industrious celebrities and the former has a much broader mass to appeal. The celebrities prefer twitter over facebook for one of the apparent reasons where crazy ordinary lay fans cannot hound them to add to their agonies of encroaching their privacy by having the option of only to FOLLOW them. Having said this, facebook is as much popular as Twitter may be.

                        However let me put it succinctly my views of contention, facebook being an over-addiction these days have started hampering on the psychological mind-sets of youngsters which may have cascading effects on the later stages of their adulthood. Let alone, the students who are ensnarled with their smart phones in colleges not paying heed to their lectures/ lecturers, the younger employees in offices too shrug away from their job responsibilities aside only to get glued to their smart phones operating facebook and the latest hit Whatsapp. The irony doesn’t even end here, the young faculties, lecturers don’t impart lectures and instead beseech their class students to add them as FRIENDS by sending FRIEND REQUESTS or exchanging numbers in case of connecting on Whatsapp.

                        Initially when facebook started gaining the popularity, the smart phones weren’t much into the picture, making office goers or collegians scrambling to their office or college desktops out of unmitigated infatuation towards it. Since this violent turbulence of FB had a boisterous uproar, the rage started hampering the organizations goals set for employees, making the offices to restrict the access of fb in much disdain. But this sigh of relief for companies were short-lived, as the tumultuous craze hit the smart phones too when they got introduced in India in much broader mobile handsets market, wherein now, blocking such websites on desktops have no avail anymore for colleges or organizations. The employees access their FB accounts flagrantly in their office premises from their SMART ANDRIOD MOBILES which in any case cannot be objected by the companies to cease the usage of it, as its employees private property, same goes with college student’s these days in college premises.   

                        However the general scenario appears glum, as the apart from all these, the factor of wastage of precious time, collegians also get involved in chat altercations and UNFRIEND their fellow young friends which leads to animosity and acrimonious behaviour till the end of their lives in a pernicious way, as if there can’t be friend’s made outside facebook or there is no world for them outside it.  Besides all these, many profile holders, mostly men, invite opposite genders as their muse to meet them for the first time, which is a breeding ground as well as one of the glaring means of rise in crime against women, who later get physically assaulted under the ruse of dating their men for the first time in person out of curiosity. The regrets later come as they realize that the much required background verification was not done, and the genuineness of men were actually feigned to woo them which later turned out to be sheer sham pervertible camouflages.

                        The above all points only prove that barring the advantage of re-uniting with your lost pals, it’s more turning out to be a curse as facebook is utilized into ill perceived ventures. Hence I feel that these social networking websites SHOULD BE BANNED, if the betterment of younger and still born generation is desired. Else this brouhaha will continue to make things in disarray is my personal prognostication.