Love for Rafi brings contestants together

Nagpur: A special audition for senior citizens who wanted to be a part of ‘Rafi Fest’ was organized on Thursday by Kalashrushthi Bahuudeshiya Sanstha and United Christian Congress at Rashtrabhasha Prachar Samiti.

Participants enjoyed the contest and songs sung by their fellow competitors as they were all one in their love for singer Mohammed Rafi.

Since 2003 ‘Rafi Fest’ is being organized in the city every year to mark the singer’s death anniversary on July 31.

More than 30 senior citizens participated in the audition. Enus Francis had come all the way from Kamptee to participate. “I attend the programme every year. For me, there is no name bigger than Rafi in the world of singing.I am looking forward to the final contest which is scheduled to take place on July 29,” he said.

The music programme by the organization will be held on July 31.

Enjoying the song ‘Phoolon ki rani’ being rendered by a competitor Shivkant Jaiswal said, “It doesn’t matter that a competitor is singing the song. We are all here to celebrate Rafi.” Many super hit songs like ‘Aane se uske’, ‘Kaun hai jo sapno me aaya’ etc sung by Rafi were presented.

Baba Chapekar and Vinod Sonkar were the judges for the audition.

Harshil Thomas, one of the organizers of the event and his wife Lalita are both big fans of Rafi. While interacting with TOI, Lalita spoke about the reason of holding a special audition for senior citizens.

“We wanted to show our support towards them and thus decided to take extra efforts to include them in the programme and give them a chance to sing the songs of their favourite singer and enjoy,” she said.


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