Amateur Nagpur singers pay tribute to Mohd Rafi

Nagpur: The popularity of Hindi film songs and the huge fan following of singer Mohd Rafi was evident at the musical concert ‘Tum Jiyo Hazaron Saal’ organized by a group of amateur singers on Monday evening at Sai Sabhagruh.
Paying tribute to the legendary singer on his 92nd birth anniversary, were eight singers, most of them government employees, presenting 25 songs at the concert.
Beginning with a qawwali from Amar Akbar Anthony, ‘Shirdiwale Saibaba’ which was rendered by Mohnish Masram, the programme was a mix of Rafi’s solos and duets. Prashant Masaram’s rendition of ‘Ye duniya usiki’ was good though ‘Mujhe ishq hai tumhise’ by Prakash was way off mark. But the concert bounced back with the peppy ‘Tum se achha kaun hai’ by Monish and ‘O mere sona’ by Ankita Takle who also showed her talent with ‘Patta patta, buta buta’ which she presented with Dhanraj Raut.
The song list had some hits of Rafi yet it did not reflect the rich repertoire of Rafi songs and left his die-hard fans disappointed. But in the thin crowd that was present at the venue there weren’t many who would have complained.
“The sole idea is to provide a stage to many artists in this city who have talent but cannot get a platform to show it,” explained Mohnish. “We all have pooled in money to hold this show which is free. We don’t have the resources to give publicity to our events but in future too we will keep the entry to our shows free,” he said.
The show rode singularly on the strength of popular numbers like ‘Yuhi tum mujhse baat karti ho’, ‘Deewana hua badal’ and ‘Gulabi ankhen’ which are compositions that do not need any support from orchestra or a good sound system.