Call him a song catcher or musicologist, A.M. Asharaf 's home is a menagerie of film songs dating back to pre-Independence era.
Kochi-based A.M. Asharaf began collecting film songs from 1980 and now he has in his collection more than a thousand film songs from Malayalam, Hindi and Tamil films. Be it the first Malayalam song from the film 'Jnanambika' or the songs from the latest releases or the entire song collection of legendary singers like Mohammad Rafi, Mukesh, Kishore Kumar, Manna Dey, he has it all.
“Those days, newspapers and theatres were the only way to track these films. I am a big admirer of Prem Nazir, Amitabh Bachchan and Sivaji Ganeshan. Once they vanished from the limelight, I stopped going to theatres. But thanks to new technology, Internet has helped me locate films released before 1943. I made a list of all those films and tried to get hold of these songs. The task required a lot of time and effort that at times I even forgot that I had a family," laughs Asharaf.
Asharaf says that he got the inspiration to collect music from his grandmother, “My grandmother was an ardent lover of film songs. I grew up seeing her collecting old songs that are evergreen.
That inspired me to start collecting songs as a hobby. Though I have a huge collection of music, the sad part is I am not a good singer," muses Asharaf.
However, his effort paid off when veteran singer Yesudas visited his house to see the collection. Asharaf gifted him a compilation of songs that included the first ever song sung by Yesudas.
“I am a big fan of Yesudas. Thanks to my friend R. Thankarajan, who made it possible for me to meet Yesudas in person. It was the most memorable moment when Dasettan took the initiative to see my collection. He was quite surprised to see that I have in my collection old songs that have vanished from public domain."
