Google Doodle pays tribute to Mohammed Rafi, on his 93rd birth anniversary

Google has paid tribute to the late legendary Indian singer Mohammed Rafi through the **Google doodle** on 24 December which marks his 93rd birth anniversary. In a  detailed post, Google outlines Rafi’s life right from when he was “a little boy named Pheeko” to Mohammed Rafi. [caption id=“attachment_4273233” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Image: Google[/caption]   The doodle was made by Sajid Shaikh, a Mumbai-based illustrator, depicting the image of Rafi recording music with wired headphones and a microphone with the music notes in his left hand. The doodle also includes a still from Rafi’s hit song ‘Chala Bhi Aa Aaja Rasiya’ from the drama ‘Man Ki Aankhen’ (1970). This still shows Dharmendra and Waheeda as part of the sketch. It is also likely that the still could be from another of Rafi’s songs, ‘Aaj Mausam Bada Beimaan Hai’ from Loafer (1973) with Dharmendra and Mumtaz. The uncertainty is because of the similar poses used while shooting romantic songs in Bollywood in the 1970s and 1980s. Rafi was born in the pre-Partition era, in the Amritsar district of Punjab, Pakistan. He moved to India, and to Mumbai, in 1944. He made his Bollywood singing debut with the 1945 film Gaon Ki Gori. Rafi’s body of work, dominated by Bollywood, consisted of a diverse range of music — from qawwalis to bhajan and from patriotic songs to melancholic melodies. He had received a National Award for his rendition of the evergreen song ‘Kya Hua Tera Wada’ from Nasir Hussain’s 1977 musical Hum Kisise Kum Naheen. Besides this honour, he has also won six Filmfare Awards. Rafi started humming songs while working at a barber’s shop run by his relative to training under Ustad Abdul Wahid Khan. Rafi has about “five thousand songs to his credit” across a number of music genres from romance to classical music, rock and roll to ballads in languages ranging from Hindi to Arabic, English, Persian, Creole, Sinhalese, and Dutch. [caption id=“attachment_4273235” align=“alignnone” width=“1280”] Image: Google[/caption] The post also mentions how Rafi won his first Filmfare award in 1960 for ‘Chaudhvi Ka Chand’ and later the National Award for the song ‘Kya Hua Tera Wada’. The government of India awarded him with a Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award in India for his contribution in the field of music. His other popular songs include ‘Teri Pyaari Pyaari Surat Ko’, ‘Mere Mehboob Tujhe’, ‘Chahunga Main Tujhe’, ‘Baharao Phool Barsao’, ‘Dil Ke Jharokhe Mein’, ‘Badi Mastani Hai’, ‘Parda Hai Parda’, ‘Dard-e-dil, Dard-e-jigar’ and ‘Maine Poochha Chaand Se’. His most successful collaborations have been with music composers RD Burman, Lakshmikant-Pyarelal, Shankar Jaikishan, SD Burman, Naushad, OP Nayyar, Madam Mohan and Ravi. Arguably one of the most celebrated singers in the 100 years of Hindi cinema, Rafi passed away on  31 July, 1980 aged 55.