Meri Awaaz Suno (Listen to My Voice)

Short Story

Mohammed Rafi’s voice filled the small Chennai apartment, a divine melody that transcended eras. Ram Ramanathan, a retired government clerk, sat in his armchair, eyes closed, absorbing every note. Every microtone wasn’t just music—it was wafting divinity, flowing straight from the heavens. Rafi wasn’t merely a singer; he was the voice of God.

Ram’s love affair with Mohammed Rafi’s music began in his teenage years. An uncle visiting from Singapore had brought him a treasure—an LP of The Golden Voice of Rafi, its sleeve slightly worn but carefully preserved. One song was all it took. Ram was bowled over—utterly captivated by that divine voice.

The first track, Baharon Phool Barsao (O Springtime, shower petals), played like a spell, its lush orchestration and silken vocals unlike anything he had ever heard before. He was astonished to learn that Rafi had even recorded an English version of the song titled Although We Hail from Different Lands. His uncle also introduced him to the theory that the piano interlude in Aap Ke Haseen Rukh (Your Beautiful Face) was possibly inspired by Floyd Cramer’s slip-note piano style. That afternoon, they sat cross-legged on the floor, spinning one record after another—Tum Jo Mil Gaye Ho (Now That I've Found You), Kya Hua Tera Wada (What Happened to Your Promise), Abhi Na Jao Chhod Kar (Don’t Leave Just Yet).

Ram was spellbound. From that day forward, he lived on a steady diet of Rafi—melancholic Rafi, devotional Rafi, romantic Rafi, even the inebriated Rafi of Chalkaye Jaam, though, as Ram would later learn with quiet admiration, the maestro himself had never touched a drop of the brew.

Through the decades, his devotion remained steadfast. From records in the ‘70s to cassettes in the ‘80s and ‘90s, to CDs and then YouTube, Rafi was his constant companion. So much that his friends referred to him as Rafi Ramanathan. When the legend passed away in 1980, Ram felt the earth shatter beneath him. He dived into depression, convinced that life had lost melody and meaning. Eventually, he recovered, finding solace in his monotonous government job just because it gave him ample time to listen to Rafi’s songs and discover hidden gems over the internet.

However, one bitterness never left him—his resentment for the singer Kishore Kumar. He blamed the shift in the industry - actor Rajesh Khanna’s meteoric rise and his preference for Kishore’s voice for his songs - for Rafi’s decline. In Ram’s eyes, it all began with Aradhana in 1969. Kishore’s “Roop Tera Mastana” (Your beauty is Intoxicating) for the film. It was electric. The song exploded onto the airwaves, and with it, Kishore Kumar’s rich, impish baritone ascended to dominance—hailed as the new voice of romance, the very soundtrack for a generation’s longing.

From there, Kishore rode the wave of Khanna’s stardom, delivering hit after hit—Mere Sapno Ki Rani (Queen of my Dreams), Yeh Shaam Mastani (This enchanting evening), Zindagi Ek Safar Hai Suhana (Life is a beautiful Journey). Rafi, once the undisputed emperor of playback singing, found himself increasingly sidelined. Ram followed the shift with disbelief and anguish. To him, Kishore’s singing lacked the range, soul, and finesse that Rafi carried even in his simplest notes. He believed the maestro’s heart had broken under the weight of rejection, especially after decades of giving the industry his everything.

Marriage did not change Ram. His wife, a traditional Tamil woman raised on a repertoire of Carnatic music, was gently coerced into appreciating Rafi. He played song after song—romantic numbers like "Aap ke haseen rukh pe aaj naya noor hai"—a line he found achingly beautiful, praising the radiance of a loved one’s face. She didn’t quite grasp the words, nor the sentiment behind them, but over time, she began humming them absentmindedly while cooking or folding clothes. That was victory enough for him.

Ram’s friends in Chennai, however, were baffled by his musical tastes. In a city fiercely proud of its Tamil identity, Hindi was often treated with suspicion—if not outright indifference. The anti-Hindi agitations of the past still echoed in people’s minds. Tamil literature, Tamil films, and Tamil music reigned supreme. Learning Hindi was seen as unnecessary. So, when Ram professed his love for Mohammed Rafi, it invited mockery.

They teased him— “You and your Rafi fantasies!”— and rolled their eyes when he gushed about Chaudhvin Ka Chand (The moon of the fourteenth night), and questioned why he’d choose unfamiliar lyrics over the lyrical richness of Bharathiyar or Kannadasan. But the mockery only deepened his devotion. The more they scoffed, the louder he played his Rafi cassettes.

Ironically, some of those very friends, in private moments, couldn’t help but be moved by Rafi’s voice. Who wouldn’t be? But in public, they maintained the required disdain— “Too nasal,” they’d say, or “I don’t get the words.” Ram saw through it all. Their aversion was cultural, not musical. And that made his reverence feel even more special—like mutiny wrapped in melody.

His children, of course, didn’t escape either. They were raised on a steady dose of Rafi, till one day they staged a minor revolt, claiming they'd been force-fed his music far beyond reason.

Yet for Ram, Rafi was more than music—it was a personal truth he tightly held on to, no matter how the world around him shifted or sneered.

Slowly but surely, Ram’s obsession with the singing legend deepened. He began to study Rafi’s life and music with quiet intensity—scouring second hand bookstores for biographies, digging through dusty piles of film magazines, and clipping out any article that mentioned his idol. He searched for the songs themselves, tracking down old cassettes like rare treasures. What fascinated him most were the patterns—the way Rafi’s voice moved through emotion and melody. He noticed, for instance, the haunting similarity between Chhoo lene do naazuk hothon ko ("Let these delicate lips be gently touched") and Jaane bahaar husn tera ("O beauty of spring, your grace")—both composed by the great Ravi, and both rooted in the late-night raga Malkauns, known for its mysterious, introspective mood. For Ram, these weren’t just songs—they were sacred markers on his musical pilgrimage.

Then, one day, life played a trick on him.

Ram had been battling a persistent skin allergy for weeks—an itchy, nagging irritation that refused to respond to the usual home remedies. Reluctantly, he decided it was time to see a specialist and booked an appointment with a local dermatologist, Dr. Azeez, whose clinic came highly recommended but was known to be suffocatingly packed.

The waiting room was a cramped, humming space, with patients fanning themselves and scrolling endlessly on their phones. Children fidgeted. Ceiling fans whirred. Time dragged. Ram glanced at his watch—twice, then again. An hour passed. The discomfort on his skin was now rivalled only by the growing restlessness under it.

He considered getting up and leaving. However, the idea of navigating Chennai’s chaotic traffic again the next day made him pause. He had waited this long and might as well get this done with.

Just as he stood to stretch his legs, a nurse emerged, glanced at the clipboard, and called out, “Mr. Ram?”. He exhaled—both in relief and anticipation—as he followed her down the narrow hallway, not knowing that this ordinary visit was about to take an unexpected turn.

As he stepped into the doctor’s chamber, Ram froze.

The man seated before him was a spitting image of Mohammed Rafi. The same kind, expressive eyes, the rounded nose, the gentle smile—everything was identical. Even his voice, warm and rich, had the same tonal essence.

Ram stammered, barely able to get a word out.

As he sat across from the doctor, he couldn't help blurting out, “Doctor… forgive me, but are you by any chance… related to Mohammed Rafi?”

There was a brief pause. Dr. Azeez looked up from his notes, eyebrows arched. For a second, Ram thought he saw something—was it recognition? A glimmer of shared reverence?

Instead, the doctor blinked and said, “Who? Is he… a doctor?”

Ram’s face fell. “No, sir… I meant the singing legend. Mohammed Rafi. The voice of a generation. ‘Chaudhvin ka chaand ho…’”

Dr. Azeez let out a warm laugh. “Ah! I see. No, no—unfortunately, I don’t think so. I’m from the South; he was from Punjab. Not even a distant musical cousin, I’m afraid.”

He leaned forward with a grin. “But tell me—unless your rash is somehow Rafi-related—what seems to be the problem?”

Ram could barely focus on his ailment. The itch that had tormented him for weeks now felt distant, almost irrelevant. He mumbled his symptoms—dryness, redness, a burning sensation near the elbows—barely hearing the doctor’s calm reassurances or the scratch of pen on prescription pad.

The room felt strangely hushed, the air heavier than before, as if something unseen lingered just outside the reach of explanation. He took the folded slip of paper, nodded vaguely, and stepped out into the corridor like a man just awoken from a dream.

But as he descended the narrow staircase and emerged into the blinding afternoon sun, a strange unease clung to him. He tried shaking it off, blaming the long wait, the heat, the crowd. And yet—his mind refused to let go of what he had seen. Not the doctor’s words, but something else entirely… a glint in the eye, a flicker in the voice, a familiarity that shouldn’t have been there.

A face… a smile… a shadow of someone long gone, but not forgotten.

The next day, Ram began following Dr. Azeez.

He watched closely—how the doctor greeted each patient in the lobby with a quiet grace, a gentleness that felt achingly familiar. There was something in the way he moved, the way his eyes softened, the way his voice curved around words. It wasn’t just kindness. IT was the tone – the lilting tone of Mohammed Rafi.

Ram lingered near the clinic, hidden in plain sight. Every evening, he tracked the doctor at a distance, through winding lanes and dim-lit streets, heart thudding with a mixture of guilt, wonder, and something dangerously close to belief.

And then, one dusky evening, it happened.

Dr. Azeez stopped at the edge of an old, abandoned park—a place swallowed by time. He sat on a rusting bench, the dying sun painting long shadows across the cracked earth. For a moment, he was still.

Then… he began to hum.

The melody floated gently into the air—Tum Mujhe Yun Bhula Na Paoge.(You wouldn’t be able to Forget Me).

The voice was flawless. Unmistakable. A spectral echo of Rafi himself. Every note rang with a depth that transcended imitation. It wasn’t mimicry. It was presence.

Ram gasped, an involuntary sound that broke the spell.

The doctor turned slowly. Their eyes met. A smile—not entirely human, not entirely distant—curled on his lips. It was the smile of someone who knew.

Just as Ram took a step forward, the doctor seemed to flicker—like a figure behind a pane of shifting glass—and he was gone.

No sound, no footsteps. Had he darted into the trees? Or had Ram simply lost sight of him for a second too long?

Ram stood rooted, breath suspended, the song still ringing in his ears like a sacred whisper. Had his devotion conjured a ghost? Had Rafi returned, if only for a moment? Or had his own mind, steeped in years of reverence, filled the silence with a voice he longed to hear? Or was it really the embarrassed doctor who vanished into the woods.

The wind stirred the trees with a sigh, lifting a final note into the air—soft, eternal.

Some voices, Ram realized, don’t die. They ripple through time. They wait in silence. And when the heart listens…they sing again.