Today morning Google reminded me
that this is the 136th birth anniversary of Munshi Premchand; and a
little while later, it was Facebook’s turn to remind that this is also the 36th
death anniversary of Mohd Rafi. Two unparalleled stalwarts, who had enriched
our culture like none other, born and died respectively, exactly 100 years
apart. This fact makes this day really unique.
The credit for whatever
fiction/non-fiction I have read in life should go to Premchand. It all started
when, as a little child, I found a partially torn copy of some old magazine,
which contained the story ‘Panch
Parmeshwar’. The little child, that was me, knew little about Munshi
Premchand or about Indian villages; but the story touched some cord somewhere,
and the child had read the story umpteen times before he put the magazine down.
And soon afterwards, as destiny would have it, I was given a small book, titled
‘Munshi Premchand ki Shreshtha Kahaniyan’
– and I was hooked. Pretty quickly I had finished all the volumes of Mansarovar (the novels came later)
available at the local Hindi Pustakalaya,
and then I moved on to other Hindi authors, and finally to English ones.
I was introduced to Rafi much
later in life. Though I had always enjoyed the melody of Hindi film music, I
never really cared about the singer(s) or music-director(s). Somewhere in my
early teens, the song ‘Pukarata chala hun
main’ from the film Mere Sanam forced
me to check for the singer – and Rafi had won a life-time admirer. In those early
days, my passion for Rafi was limited only by the availability of audio
cassettes at the local music shops – but after the arrival of YouTube, I could
find scores of previously unheard (by me at any rate) songs which are unmatched
in melody, and are unknown treasure troves of Rafi’s talent.
In addition of their immense
talent and having an ardent fan in me, these two personalities have much more
else in common. Both were extremely down-to-earth, and – in their lifetimes –
were the living embodiments of the virtue of ‘hard work and simple living’. It
is especially surprising in the case of Rafi, as he – in spite of belonging to
the glamour industry – always lived up to his middle-class values.
If we measure success in the
terms of money, power, or awards, both of them were more-or-less failures (Rafi
could win only one National Award, that too at the fag end of his career; and
Premchand was mostly at loggerheads with the British government on account of
his radical views). But if we measure success in terms of the impact on our
society, they were unqualified successes. Both of them have established
standards in their respective fields – and have inspired whole generations of
practitioners as well as fans/followers in their chosen fields. Even today, in
every by-lane and every corner of Hindi speaking/understanding regions, one can
find fans who can put any expert to shame by their nuanced understanding of
these maestros’ arts. And above all, we have had many talented and prolific
writers and singers, who took up writing or singing just because they had a
Premchand or a Rafi to look up to.
Hindi and Indian culture would
not have existed, as it exists today, without these doyens. We will always be
indebted…
