The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Rafi lives in his voice

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Tuesday, Aug 19, 2008
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Rafi lives in his voice

M. Raghuram

A Mohammed Rafi sing-alike, Tagoredas Mallya, who was in town, speaks to The Hindu

WOH JAB YAAD AAYE: Tagoredas Mallya

BANGALORE: Twenty-eight years have passed since the “man with the golden voice” Mohammad Rafi died. But memories of his mellifluous voice still haunt his fans. For a short while a singer called Shabeer Ahmed did try to emulate him but that experiment did not last long. His yearning fans now have a Rafi sing-alike in Tagoredas Mallya who belongs to Dakshina Kannada district. His fan club extends over India, West Asia and Singapore.

Tagoredas Mallya, who can sing the many songs of Rafi with ease, has held over 5,000 performances. He has given 24-hour concerts of just Rafi songs more than once. Recently, he gave an 18-hour non-stop concert at Manipal in Udupi district which was organised by his friends and sponsored by SyndicateBank, Manipal Academy of Higher Education and Udayavani group of publications in aid of his Autism-affected daughter.

Tagoredas, who was passing through Bangalore, spoke to The Hindu about his passion to emulate Rafi. “My friends said my voice could pass for his with some changes. I tried some intonation changes, and the result was that I sounded like Rafi which encouraged me to continue singing,” he said.

Tagoredas is also an avid collector of stories from the life of Rafi. Narrating how Rafi came into singing, he said, “Rafi’s elder brother Hamid took Rafi to a concert by the legendary K.L. Saigal.

During the concert the power failed and the young Mohammad Rafi was called on to entertain the audience. Impressed by his voice, filmmaker Shamsundar gave him a chance in his Punjabi film, ‘Gulbaloch’. There was no looking back and Rafi went onto sing more than 25,000 songs during this career.”

One of Tagoredas’s great fans, M. Rajendra, a banker, said, “I sat through the concert in Manipal for more than 13 hours. He gave me a list of 300 songs from which one could make a request.” Ganesh Naik, coordinator of Tagoredas’s concerts, says he can sing more than 500 songs of Rafi without looking into the song book.

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