Marketing consultant and advisor P Narayan, chartered accountant Ashok Dalmia and BHEL assistant general manager Gurumurthy bonded over the melodious voice of Mohammed Rafi. So passionate were they about his music that they started Baar Baar Rafi, a fan club.
Rafi’s songs have been an insightful inspiration for many, and though his evergreen voice still wafts around the world, the trio has been resurrecting the soul in his songs through their club.
Established in February 2008 in Bengaluru, Baar Baar Rafi—or BBR—has 597 members, who meet regularly and participate in special Rafi quizzes, play antakshari on his songs, present audios and videos of his songs, and sing his songs on karaoke. “Membership is absolutely free. The only condition is that the person should love Rafi as a singer and should be fairly aware of his songs,” says 58-year-old Narayan. “In south India, we only had access to radio in the 50s till the 70s. That was the only source through which we heard Rafi. His voice still lives on with his 26,000 odd songs.”
It is mandatory for the club members to pay homage to Rafi on December 24, his birthday when the voice rose, and on July 31, when it fell. “The objective is to spread the golden voice of Rafi among the younger generation, to foster brotherhood among all communities and spread the love of humanity through his songs, and to encourage many senior citizens to further develop their hobby of singing. We also try to promote local talent and encourage them to give public musical programmes,” Narayan says.
Membership is through baarbaarrafi.com or by SMSing BBR’s core team. The average age of members is 45 years, with the youngest being 18. The majority of members are women.
They plan to conduct four musical get-togethers and a mega musical in 2016. “We intend to form a library of songs sung by him and undertake charity work periodically in the memory of Rafi sahab, who was well known for his humanitarian work,” says Narayan. Members also collect as many songs, rare photos and other reflections that have a touch of Rafi.
The members also celebrate an annual ‘Rafi holiday’ and interact with fan clubs and foundations in other cities. They also give free books, pencils, pens, etc., to needy schools by pooling money.
Speaking about the awareness levels in other parts of the country, Narayan says that Rafi’s name and voice is eternal. “Awareness about Rafi sahab is very high in the north, west and east among music lovers of the golden era. He also sang many songs in Bengali, Assamese, Odia, Gujarati and Marathi, while the maximum were in his mother tongue Punjabi. Rafi clubs in Kolkata, Delhi, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Amritsar, Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur, Bhopal and Jabalpur are very active.”
While each member of the BBR club does his or her very best to safeguard and spread the legacy left behind by the legend, the one thing close to their hearts is to live him and celebrate him.