Soon after I posted my Rafi challenge, people pointed out that since I was looking for rare songs $1 may not be sufficient. So, to coax rare Rafi songs out of people I offered $10 for each new song from 1-10 and so on.
For a few months, I received emails almost daily. These were obviously from people who had never heard of Hindi Film Geet Kosh and the other 3 books on Rafi. I had to reject them because the songs were known. Once in a while I would get an email saying that the person had hundreds of unknown Rafi songs but would not part them at any price! I begged them to send me a list so that I can try to get them from another source. They never replied.
Long story short, only a total of 8 new songs were discovered. Four by me, I gave myself $40. Two other people sent songs but refused to take the money, so I gave them rare songs from my collection. All of these songs were songs available only in the film for which no records were issued.
So, did I ever give anybody any actual money? Ketan Dholakia has been pestering me for a long time saying that I never gave anybody money. This is ironic because he was present when I gave 20 crisp one dollar bills to two RMIMErs!
It happened during the June 28, 2002 RMIMeet at Chetan and Poorvi's house in New Jersey. I gave $10 to late Satish Kalra for a song from Balam and another $10 to Chetan for a song from Basant Bahar.
Photographic proof!
Late Satish Kalra and Me.
Late Satish Kalra, Chetan Vinchhi and Me.
Me, Chetan Vinchhi, KETAN DHOLAKIA (!), Abhay Indori, Late Satish Kalra and ...
Now You Know!
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