orn in Kotla Sultan Singh, now on the Indian side of the border, Mohammed Rafi moved to Lahore with his family and was drawn into the city’s musical world.

Lahore was then a major centre of cultural activity in northern India, with patrons organising musical mehfils in their baithaks. Takya Mirasiyan was an important centre of musical activity. Private gatherings also brought together musicians and music lovers. Radio, too, was becoming an increasingly important part of this cultural landscape.

Rafi immersed himself in the city’s vibrant music scene before eventually leaving Lahore for Bombay, where the expanding film industry offered new opportunities to singers and musicians.

By then, traditional patronage was giving way to new institutions and forms. Recording companies and radio had become important platforms for musicians. The arrival of talkies opened another avenue altogether. The film song soon emerged as a form in its own right. KL Saigal and Noor Jehan were among its early stars, helping establish film music as a central part of popular culture.

Many others followed. Mohammed Rafi, alongside Lata Mangeshkar, came to represent a new generation of playback singers.

Rafi worked with some of the leading composers of the era. Jugnu, with music by Feroz Nizami, proved an important early breakthrough in his career.

He also drew attention with Suno suno aye duniyawalo, Bapu ki yeh amar kahani, written by Rajinder Krishan and composed by Husnlal Bhagatram after the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.

Rafi went on to become one of the most sought-after playback singers in Indian cinema. Over the following decades, his voice became inseparable from Hindi film music, as he worked with generations of composers and sang for some of the industry’s biggest stars.

For Lahore, however, there was another connection. The city had been part of Rafi’s formative journey before Partition redrew borders and Bombay became the centre of his extraordinary career. For decades after Partition, there remained people who remembered the young singer from his years in the city.

The Lahoris always considered him their own.

Rafi died in 1980, aged 55, leaving behind a vast body of songs that helped shape popular musical taste across several decades.

The writer is a culture critic based in Lahore.