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In the film Ram Tera Desh (1984) Sarika accidentally finds out that the daughter-in-law of Shashikala was poisoned to death.
Sarika Discovers
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Most people know about this. It is being re-posted mainly for the newcomers..
On Aug 2, 2001, I made this post on the Classic RMIM group.
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Hi RMIMers:
As many of you know, I am much interested in the history of Hindi Film Music. I would like to do as much as I can to learn more about it and preserve this priceless heritage.
One of my most favorite singers, Rafi has seemingly sung 25,000 songs. However, all the researchers so far seem to have missed more than 80% of these.
For example, I have two books on Rafi (both bearing unmistakeable imprint of Geet Kosh) and they give the number of his songs as approximately 4,525. Both of these books list the first lines of the songs, movie name, year of the certificate, music director, lyricist and co-singer (if any). For very few songs they do not have complete information. It is possible that all the books missed 1% of his songs. So, an estimate of the total might be 4,570.
As a person who is a music lover, a Rafi fan and eager to help research, I have decided to put my money where my mouth is. Some of you may say that I have put my foot in my mouth. Be that as it may, I declare the following:
If you have in your possession songs that are not listed in any of the compilations, please come forward. Send me a recording of such a Rafi song and documentary proof that Rafi indeed sang the song in question. If you meet the above two conditions (namely, produce a recording of a song not in any Rafi book compilation and documentary proof that Rafi sang it), I promise to pay you as follows:
For new song numbers 1-10 $1 each
For new song numbers 11-20 $2 each
For new song numbers 21-30 $5 each
For new song numbers 31-40 $10 each
For new song numbers 41-50 $20 each
Of course, the song and the documentary proof become my sole property. Also, I will pay for a song only once, to the first claimant!
Surjit Singh, a diehard movie fan(atic), period.
PS: I urge all fans of lata, asha, mahendra kapoor, sonu niigam etc. to put their money where their mouth is!
SS.
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Somehow this news was picked up by the Indian newspapers.
More later!
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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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