The ‘old is gold’ brigade was out in full force to pledge support to ‘Ek Manzil Rahi Do’, a musical soiree featuring melodies of Mohammed Rafi and Mukesh, organised by Music Lovers, Chennai, at the Music Academy. It wasn’t only a nostalgic 60-plus audience but a fair sprinkling of the younger generation as well that queued up for the sold-out show.
Sarvesh Mishra from Mumbai was the voice of Rafi while Mukhtar Shah from Ahmedabad was that of Mukesh. Usha Raj from Chennai and Sangeeta Melekar from Mumbai completed the quartet.
Warming up with the gentle lilt of ‘Suhaani raat’ (‘Dulari’), Rafi’s choice of opening number for his Madras stage shows, Sarvesh moved to the ‘Tere husn ki kya’ duet from ‘Leader’ with Sangeeta and the evergreen hit ‘Tere mere sapne’. Mukthar’s renditions of Mukesh’s ‘Oho re taal mile’ (‘Anokhi Raat’) with rustic overtones, and ‘Saranga teri yaad mein ’ in raag Yaman Kalyan struck the right chord. Thereafter, the two luminaries’ songs picturised on the Kapoor brothers, Raj and Shammi, took up a large chunk of the musical pie.
It was during the Rafi-Lata duet ‘Tasveer teri dil mein’ launched with a delicately sketched flute prelude that the synergy really took over. Among the numbers that radiated positivity were ‘Main zindagi ka saath’ (’Hum Dono’) and ‘Alla jaane kya’ (’Hariyali Aur Raasta’), the latter supplying proof that Mukesh’s songs were not just about life as a vale of tears, but upbeat too. A medley from ‘Awara’, ‘Anadi’ and ‘Shree 420’ had listeners asking for more.
There is a certain quality to the real-time experience of a live orchestra that can only be termed electrifying. To recreate an original score is a demanding proposition. Members of the orchestra, conducted by Rafi and aided by Anand Madhavan, brought alive the composers’ grand vision with accuracy that can only result from long hours of focused practice. Nowhere was this more evident than in the evening’s piece de resistance ‘Aa ab laut chalein’ (’Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai’). Here, the linearity, spartan in parts, of Mukesh’s vocals, emphasises the complexity of the orchestration. Even as the orchestral highs and lows choreographed a high-voltage drama, Usha Raj handled Lata Mangeshkar’s mesmerising ‘Aaja re’ segment with elan. As serendipity would have it, acclaimed Italian soprano Mirabela Costella who happened to be vacationing in Chennai, consented to add her mite to the well-coordinated chorus.
Post a brief interval, a breezy ‘Ruk ja’, ‘Kabhi kabhi mere dil me’, ‘Suhaana safar’ and the poignant ‘Sau baar janam lenge’ impressed. Mirabela’s expertise was again harnessed in the stirring chorus of ‘Dil ke jharokhe’(Brahmachari).
Sarvesh and Mukhtar’s soothing timbre, Sangeeta’s emotive intensity and Usha’s effortless scaling of high notes evoked the magic of an era captured by music directors such as Naushad, Roshan, Khayyam, Shankar-Jaikishen, Kalyanji-Anandji, Bharat Vyas, Sardar Malik and Ravi and lyricists such as Shakeel Badayuni and Sahir Ludianvi.
Lakshmi Raghavan’s compering built up anticipation with well-researched, interesting snippets about each number. In keeping with the forum’s practice of spot-lighting social service organisations, the representatives of SOS Children’s Village and Cancare Foundation which provides palliative care for cancer patients were invited to speak about their work.
