Mubarak Begum was remembered by Rafi Lovers Circle.

Mubarak Begum was remembered by Rafi Lovers Circle.

On 25.10.09 Rafi Lovers Circle organized Remembering Melody Queens with Mubarak Begum to confer Mohamed Rafi Memorial Award 2009 to the Singer of so many nice songs.

The programme started at around 6.10 pm at Satyajit Ray Auditorium, Rabindranath Tagore Centre, ICCR, Kolkata with a brief introduction by Shri Hashim Khan, one of the founder members and Chief centre of all these enthusiasm.

First of all rich tributes were paid to Noorjehan, Suraiyya, Shamshad Begum and Geeta Dutt by crooning their hit songs by the local artistes as well as by Smt Roohi Khan, Founder of the Circle.

And here at this point viewers were compelled to think whether in their attempt to promot or use Lata Mangeshkar, Shankar-Jaikishan did injustice to themselves as well towards those beautiful female singers who were in demand that time, except Noorjehan who had left India by the time SJ stepped in. They should have exploited potential of other female singers as well and would have introduced / experimented with new voices like they did with Subir Sen, CH Atma, etc etc.

In the programme most of the songs chosen were composed by OP Nayyar, Naushad and others. When the singers begun song “Meri neendo mein tum mere khwabon mein tum...” the hall was amused and enthralled
For SJ+Mubarak Begum fans, only relieving factor was the Hamrahi song "Mujhko apne Gala Laga Lo..." which was the centre of all discussions even during personal talk members in audience used to humm this song several times as if it was the Signature song to remember Mubarak Begum. She also fondly remembered this song and sang it on the stage. Though her, "Kabhi Tanhaiyon mein, hamari yaad aayegi..." got similar weightage.

A documentary produced by Film Division was also procured by Shri Hashim Khan. An edited version of the docu was shown during the programme in which few of her photographs with Rafi Sahab and others were depicted, but I did not found any Shankar Jaikishan photograph there in the docu. I will have to check it with Hashim Khan Sahab whether in the documentary there any photograph of SJ or either of them is depicted in the documentary.
The report was compiled by Sudershan Pandey of Shanker Jaikishan dot com.