My post on Rafi’s solos by Roshan appeared more than six years ago, several years before I started the series on the stalwart music directors. And the reason was simple: Roshan ranked among the top in my reckoning for Rafi songs, along with Naushad, SD Burman and OP Nayyar. Duets have no less importance in creating this imprint on my mind. It just so happened that I am coming back to the duets of this combination after six years when DP Rangan set off a tandem series on Roshan and Madan Mohan.

Meanwhile some interesting discussions have taken place about the place of duets in the overall musical output of a singer and music director. If you just take the long-term average distribution of songs, female solos outnumber male solos by more than three-fold. Emphasising the same point in a different way, Hans says that it became a necessity for male playback singers to sing a fairly large number of duets to remain gainfully occupied. Any singer who remained fixated on singing mostly solos for the lead actor suffered in the long run. Male-female duets outnumber male solos on the average by 70% and, therefore, Rafi’s duets with most major music directors were significantly more than his solos.

But besides the numbers, duets are important for musical reasons too. They gave more creative opportunities to the music director. They could think of a question-answer/conversation type duet – Mujhe sach sach bata, or Achcha to hum chalte hain, phir kab miloge, or Aati kya khandala. Long-distance duets of separation – Mera dil todnewale mere dil ki dua lena – became important to show pining of both the lovers in separation. Nok-jhonk, roothana-manana, cavourting in the garden – all these called for duets. And then you had duets in which one of the partner only hummed, or uttered a few syllables – O nigaahein mastana, or Ye hansta hua karwan zindagi ka. Qawwali needed multiple singers. And most importantly, duets allowed the ‘other’ female singers opportunity to sing with the main male singers, as the female solo had greater entry barrier. All this created a beautiful kaleidoscope of multi-hued songs that were no less important than the solos.

Rafi’s duets composed by Roshan follow the same general pattern. Out of the total 92 Rafi-Roshan songs, solos are about 35 and duets 57. Roshan was the King of Qawwalis, and in his nine qawwalis I had selected in my post on Roshan-Madan Mohan’s qawwalis, you can see the immense range of singers: Manna Dey, Balbir, Shankar-Shambhu, Sudha Malhotra, SD Batish, Mahendra Kapoor and Bande Hassan, besides his stock singers in qawwalis, Rafi and Asha Bhosle. In pure male-female duets too, Roshan was quite open to taking female singers other than Lata Mangeshkar, and Rafi’s duets with the ‘other’ singers were as good as Rafi-Lata duets.

It is worthwhile to repeat an interesting feature of Roshan-Rafi association. Rafi was Roshan’s main male playback singer by miles, and was the main pillar, besides Lata Mangeshkar, of Roshan’s awesome reputation. But he was quite a late entrant in Roshan. Roshan’s career of 20 years (1949 to 1968) can be divided into two distinct phases: 1949 to 1959 (eleven years) Phase 1, which accounted for one-third of Rafi’s total songs, and 1960 to 1968 (nine years) Phase 2, which accounted for two-thirds of his songs.

Roshan used Rafi’s voice for the first time quite early in his career – in Bawre Nain (1950) in the duet with Asha Bhosle, Muhabbat ke maaron ka ye haal duniya mein hota hai, and also used him from time to time, but from the first phase you can count no more than a couple of songs which can be termed as everlasting. Then Roshan-Rafi burst forth in 1960 with Babar and Barsaat Ki Raat with some amazingly beautiful songs, as if they discovered something unique in each other. This was followed by many everlasting songs from films like Aarti, Taj Mahal, Dooj Ka Chaand, Bedaag, Bheegi Raat, Mamta, Nai Umar Ki Nai Fasal, Bahu Begum, Noorjehan and Anokhi Raat.

Let us complete our Roshan-Rafi nostalgia trip with some of their best duets.

1. Bahut aasan hai chilman se lagkar muskura dena (with Lata Mangeshkar) from Rangeen Raatein (1956), lyrics Kedar Sharma

A nice duet from the Phase 1 is this romantic song picturised on Shammi Kapoor and Mala Sinha. A little trivia about this film – Shammi Kapoor fell in love and got married with Geeta Bali during the outdoor shooting of this film, in which she had a cameo role.

2. Duniya ki nazar hai buri zulfein na sanwara karo (with Geeta Dutt) from Agra Road (1957), lyrics Prem Dhavan

But the song I like most from the Phase 1 of Roshan-Rafi association, is this sweet playful duet with Geeta Dutt, picturised on Vijay Anand and Shakeela. I hope it is not seen as having OP Nayyar influence. It is not included in Ravindra Kelkar’s post on OP Nayyar’s influence on other music directors.

3. Zindagi bhar nahi bhulegi wo barsaat ki raat (with Lata Mangeshkar) from Barsaat Ki Raat (1960), lyrics Sahir Ludhiyanavi

This title song has a solo version by Rafi which Bharat Bhushan sings at a radio station, and Madhubala, listening to the song from the radio, ‘knows’ that it refers to that accidental meeting one rainy night. This duet version comes later when the lovers (now) are on the run and taking shelter in a barn. The qawwalis from this film and Babar have been covered earlier.

4. Aapne yaad dilaya to mujhe yaad aya (with Lata Mangeshkar) from Aarti (1962), lyrics Majrooh Sultapuri

The lead pair Pradeep Kumar and Meena Kumari relationship has gone through some turbulence. Now, self-realisation seems to have dawned on them, but probably it is too late to repair it. Beautiful lyrics to show the complex emotion, great poignant music by Roshan, sung so superbly by the matchless singers Rafi and Lata Mangeshkar.

5. Wo teer dil pe chala jo teri kaman mein hai (with Asha Bhosle) from Aarti (1962)

Aarti was a high point of Roshan’s career with several timeless classics. Think of Ab kya missal dun (Rafi), Kabhi to milegi kahin to milegi (Lata Mangeshkar) and Baar baar tohe kya samjhaaun payal ki jhankar (Rafi-Lata), besides the previous duet. Even this duet picturised on the comic pair Mehmood and Vijaya Chaudhary (?) is outstanding. Asha Bhosle had to accept the implicit casteism, but for Rafi it was immaterial, because he was the singer for everyone.

6. Jo vada kiya vo nibhana padega (with Lata Mangeshkar) from Taj Mahal (1963), lyrics Sahir Ludhiyanavi

This romantic duet has achieved an iconic status.

7. Chaand takta hai idhar aao kahin chhup jaayein (with Suman Kalyanpur) from Dooj Ka Chaand (1964), lyrics Sahir Ludhiyanavi

Less heard, in hindsight this duet, now with Suman Kalyanpur, is as good as any by Roshan. His signature flute interludes add to the beauty.

8. Aankhon aankhon mein na jaane kya ishaare ho gaye (with Asha Bhosle) from Bedaag (1965), lyrics Shakeel Badayuni

Whether Lata Mangeshkar, or ‘other’ singers, it didn’t obviously make a difference to Roshan, especially if it was a duet with Rafi. It has Roshan stamp all over.

9. Aise to na dekho ki bahak jaayein kahin hum (with Suman Kalyanpur) from Bheegi Raat (1965), lyrics Majrooh Sultanpuri

Bheegi Raat became famous for the Rafi-Lata Mangeshkar twin song, Dil jo na kah saka wahi raaz-e-dil kahne ki raat aayi. And you have this romantic duet picturised on Pradeep Kumar and Meena Kumari. The lyrics are somewhat suggestive for a lady famous for her weepy, Bharatiya Naari image – Don’t look at me in this way as I may go astray. After all, I am human and not an angel.

10. In bahaaron mein akele na phiro (with Asha Bhosle) from Mamta (1966), lyrics Majrooh Sultanpuri

You remember Mamta for the great soulful, melancholic melodies – Rahein na rahein hum, Rahate the kabhi jinke dil mein (Lata Mangeshkar); Chhupa lo yun dil mein pyar mera (Hemant-Lata Mangeshkar duet) – matching with the serious theme of the movie. And tucked in between is this joyous romantic duet picturised on Dharmendra and Suchitra Sen (Junior in the movie?).

11. Hum intezaar karenge tera qayamat tak (with Asha Bhosle) from Bahu Begum (1967), lyrics Sahir Ludhiyanavi

This was mentioned in Mr. Rangan’s inaugural post, but it is my special favourite (probably because of Raga Durga). I am sure the readers would not mind a repetition. This song also had a solo version in Rafi’s voice.

What intensity of love! Sahir turns the common Urdu expression of ‘qayamat tak’ into Meena Kumari wishing for the doomsday so that the lover comes. Pradeep enters late in the song, lauding Meena Kumari that the person she would choose would be singularly lucky.

12. Aap jabse kareeb aaye hain (with Asha Bhosle) from Noorjehan (1967), lyrics Shakeel Badayuni

Roshan was born for composing gorgeous songs for Pradeep Kumar and Meena Kumari, especially if they were Muslim socials and historicals. Every music lover remembers Raat ki mahfil soono sooni (Lata Mangeshkar), Sharabi sharabi ye saawna ka Mausam (Suman Kalyanpur), Aa gaya lab pe afsana ye ashiqui ab kisi bhi fasane ki parwa nahi (Asha Bhosle & Usha Mangeshkar duet) etc. Rafi was indispensable for Roshan in the 60s, and generally he included a duet for him in any film. A lovely romantic song to end this post with.

Disclaimer: The song links have been embedded from the YouTube only for the listening pleasure of music lovers. The copyright of these songs is with the respective owners.