Budding singers impress at Rafi nite

Budding singers impress at Rafi nite

The magic of Mohammed Rafi is forever. The voice that has stirred millions of hearts for decades never seems to lose its charm. The legendary singer has sung 25,000 songs which area a source of inspiration to many upcoming artists.

Little surprise then that programmes held in his memory draw his fans from far and wide. This was proved at Tagore Theatre in Chandigarh yesterday.

A singing contest, organised by the Yadgar-e Rafi Society, saw 35 budding singers rendering songs sung by Rafi and Lata Mangeshkar.

Divided into male, female, junior and senior categories, singers from all over the region filled the air with emotional strains.

Jasmeet Kaur’s rendition of “Do dil toote do dil haare” left an impression. Tinku Raja impressed with “Kya miliye aise logon se” and Harvinder Happy sang’ “Haaye re insaan ki majbooriyan”. Ramesh Kumar captured love pangs effectively in “Meri mahobbat pak mahobbat”.

The Editor-in Chief of The Tribune group of publications, Mr H.K. Dua, was the chief guest on the occasion.

Earlier, Ms Ravinder Kang, wife of Jagmohan Singh Kang, Minister for Fisheries and Tourism, Punjab, had inaugurated the programme.

The judges included well known music director Varinder Bhachhan, B.M. Kalia and Teenu Jolly.

The winners were as follows: in senior group (males) the first prize was won by Karan Prabhakar, Harpreet Singh and Gurpreet Singh got second and third prizes, respectively.

In the senior group (females): First prize was bagged by Jasmeet Kaur, Nidhi Narang took the second prize and third prize was given to Richa Sharma. A consolation prize was given to Ravjot Kaur.

In the junior category (males) Vipul Mehta got the first prize and Kartik and Manveen Sood won the second and third prizes, respectively. A consolation prize was given to Venil Malik.

In the junior (female) category Sharmistha Banerjee, Ishita Sethi and Pooja Thakur, won the first, second and third prizes, respectively.