KOCHI: “Duniya kisi ke pyar janath se...,” Ashraf Bhai, 61, regains Mehdi Hassan in his deep voice. Next comes State Bank Koya, another senior citizen and a former employee of State Bank of India with a Mukesh song. When you walk into Haidros Koya’s house at Kinnaseri on a Sunday evening, this is what welcomes you!
Haidros Koya, 64, is a hardcore Rafi fan, whose life has always been revolving around that magical voice. Koya had, in his youth, become a radio mechanic, only to hear Rafi songs, which earned him the name ‘Radio Koya’. “When I was a child, my father had a gramophone. I remember those moments when I used to enjoy the songs of Pankaj Mallik, Rafi and Saigal on the radio. Ever since I have been madly in love with the radio,” says Koya.
Every Sunday evening, his home turns into a mehfil, ‘Purani Geeth Sathiyom,’ a get-together of music lovers. During these gatherings, the congested room in his house, which can hardly contain more than 15 people, turns into a music world. People belonging to different age groups form part of the gathering. At the mehfil, 35-year-old Ali, a singer with a unique voice, entices you with the rare songs of Rafi. Nasar Beypore with his mesmerising tabla, Rasheed with his impeccable touch on the harmonium and cups of sulaimani (black tea) served by Seenath, Radio Koya’s wife, will together hurl you into the ecstasy of ‘purani geeth.’
For the past 24 years, Koya’s home has been playing host to the gathering every Sunday when people from different walks of life come to be part of the mehfil.
Though the tunes and the mood of the mehfil are those of a bygone era, the new generation is never away from it. Twenty-three-year-old Noufal has come all the way from Payyoli to be part of the mehfil.
Having born and brought up in Kozhikode, the music mania of the place soon enveloped Koya and made him grow into an authentic appreciator of Hindustani music. The custodian of more than 2,000 original records of Mohammad Rafi and many other collections of Indian music, Koya is also a historian of Hindi film music. He knows everything about Rafi, his first duet with Noorjahan in 1945, the arrival of Lata Mangeshkar in 1946, Noorjahan leaving for Pakistan in 1947, and the dark day of 1981, when Rafi passed away. “In my life, I was never as agonised as I was on that day”, he says with sorrow in his eyes.
“Main zindagi ka saath nibhata chala gaya…” were the lines that embraced the ears of Ambili, a Hindi teacher at a college in Mukkam when she first entered the house of Radio Koya, with her music-loving students. It was none other than the legendary Mohammad Rafi singing at the peak of vocal elegance in the backdrop. She was paying a visit to Koya’s house at Kinassery, Kozhikode, after learning about him through an article published in a daily. But what awaited her and her students at Koya’s house was as ineffable as the experience of hearing a Rafi song.
A preserver of the golden period of Indian music, Koya has a collection of a variety of radios and gramophone records. “I have the Philips Holland, Mulard England, Murfi 8 Band, Radiogram of Japan and the old gramophone records which were brought from England. None of these are in vogue now. Each one of these is in perfect working condition even now,” says Koya with a sense of pride.
Koya also recollects the memories of his meeting with the beloved musician M S Baburaj. “I was very young when I used to go to the Republic Hotel at Kallai, where Babukka was a regular visitor. The image of him tuning the radio is fresh in my mind. He would sit there taking sips of podichaya (hot strong tea) as music flowed.”
Hameed Bhai, 80, walks into the mehfil, shivering with severe cold. But once he starts singing Saigal’s mind-blowing “So ja raja kumari so ja…,“ all his concerns of time and age vanish. Soon more and more people join and the house is filled with the tunes of ‘purani geeth’!
The boundaries set by generations get dissolved in the ecstatic ambience of the mehfil. Kabir, 40, hailing from Beypore has been playing harmonium in the mehfil for the past 12 years. “It has become part of our lives. Every Sunday we gather at Koyakka’s house. I have learnt a lot from these mehfils,” says Kabir.
For Ali, 32, Rafi is something that throbs in his veins. “Rafi is my mohabbath. You can feel Rafi in Koyakka. Not that he is a singer or a musician, but his love and knowledge of music, especially Rafi’s, makes him more authentic than anybody else in observations,” says Ali.
