We now take up the third leg – The Duets – of ‘Best songs of 1946: And the winners are?’. As per our Micro View Practice, we will cover this leg of the Micro View journey in three stages – Male-Female Duets, Male- Male Duets and Female-Female Duets.
As per our accepted practice, we have listed male-female duets by focusing on male singer. Also, the such male singer -wise male-female duets are listed in the descending order of number of songs that we could unequivocally locate from HFGK We have recorded duet songs for those male singers with whom we are normally conversant. Other male singers have been placed under ‘other male-female duets.
The Male Female Duets
The male female duets have been accorded almost equal respect as that accorded to male or female solo songs. Many of the male female duets have been accepted as the benchmark milestones as are some male or female solo songs have been accepted as the benchmark milestones in the Hindi Film Music.
For the sake of maintaining consistency of presentation w.r.t. the Micro View of Best Songs for XXXX @ SoY serieses in the past, I have grouped the male-female duets w.r.t. the male singer in focus. My back of the envelope notes quickly separated duets of what can be termed as more known male singers could easily be separated out from the whole population of male-female duets. However, it is the ‘other male-female duets’ that weigh quanitatively higher in numbers. In so far as previous familiairity is concerned, the number os such songs for me personally is a very small fraction of all the songs listed herein.
I have arranged the male singer-wise male-female songs in the descending order of number of songs for the number of male-female duets for the particular male singer.
Duets of Mohammad Rafi
Even as Mohammad Rafi does not have, quantitatively, so large number of duets for 1946, it should not be surprising that we have opportunity to listen to these songs for the first time because of our now established practice of Micro view listening to the songs of the vintage era years.
Gae Ja .. Bhul Ja Apne Geet Purane – Ghunghat – With Nirmala Devi -Shankar Rao Vyas – Ramesh Gupta
HFGK does not mention names of the singers.
Rukhi Sukhi Main Kha Luhgi Paas Bula Lo Mere Raja – Insaaf – with Hamida Bano – H P Das – D N Madhok
Khud Samaz Lo Ke Iltaza Kya Hai – Rangbhoomi – with Shamshad Begum – Premnath – Arzoo Lakhanavi
Ye Nayan KyuN Sharma Rahe Hai – Rasili – With Shamshad Begum – Hanuman Prasad – Gafil Haranyanvi
Watan Ki Amanat Meri Zindagi Hai – Rupa – with Shamshad Begum – Govind Ram –
Baithe Hai Tere Dar Par Kuchh Kar Ke Uthenge – Sona Chandi – With Shamshad Begum – Tufail Faruqui – Wali Sahab
Man Ki Suni Nagariya Suhani Bani – Sona Chandi – With Amirbai Karnataki – Tufail Faruqui – Khawar JamaN
Duets of G M Durrani
Mohammad Rafi considered G M Durrani as his role model in his early career. Here, G M Durrani’s duet songs indicate why so.
Jobana Sharmae Mohe Jobana Sharmae – Kuldeep – with Mohantara Talpade – Sushant Banerjee – Nawa Naqvi
Dekho Ji Kya Sama Hai, Chaman Pe Fiza Hai – Sassi Punnu – with Shamshad Begum – Pt. Govind Ram – Ishwar Chandra Kapoor
Ik Yaad Kisi Ki Aa Rahi – Shama – with Shamshad Begum – Ghulam Haider – Ehsan Rizvi
Chinab Ke Bahate Hue Paani, Mere Dilbar Se Kah De Tu Meri Kahani – Sohni Mahiwal – with Zohrabai Ambalewali – Lal Mohammad – Swami Ramanand
O Tujh Pe Salam Aye Mare Nakam-e-Mohabbat – – Sohni Mahiwal – with Zohrabai Ambalewali – Lala Mohammad – Swami Ramanand
In the next episode we will take Micro View of Male-Female Duets for 1946 for Mukesh, Chitalkar, Ashok Kumar and Surendra…………
The world is too small? or Is it? 
Ashokji,
I had seen this post earlier but could carefully listen to the songs only now. I felt I must write, because of a fabulous new discovery, ‘Sawan mein garwa laga lungi, pass bula lo more Raja’, a Rafi-Hamida Bano duet. Rafi had some great duets in 1947, but a year earlier it was blank as far as great popularity is concerned. Therefore, this is a significant discovery. Even though Rafi follows Hamida Bano, the famous voice modulation we became familiar with is present in this song.
Another of his duet worth mentioning is ‘Man ki sooni nagariya suhani bani’ with Amirbai Karnataki. But she seems to overpower him with her natural high pitch over Rafi coming in lower scale. I contrasted with ‘Ansoo thi meri zindagi’ five years down the line in ‘Bikhare Moti’ in which too she leads, but by then Rafi was in his full flow.
AK
I fully agree with your ‘findings’. I, too, had not expected any major duets with Rafi this year.
However duets section has more than enough of its quota of surprises – the songs we get to hear first time, but would take up liking immediately, on the first listening.