When, to celebrate the birth centenary (on December 24, 2024) of the one and only Mohammad Rafi, I compiled this list of my favourite Rafi songs for the top leading men of the 1950s and 60s, I was uncomfortably aware that I wasn’t doing justice to Rafi’s oeuvre. Even though I had tried my best to bung in mentions (and links) to many other songs Rafi had sung for these men. Because there were many other Rafi songs I could think of, which he had sung for actors absolutely opposite to these: extras, or actors who had woefully short-lived careers—in many cases men whose entire career might be said to hinge around one fantastic song that Rafi sang for them. A second Rafi list, arranged actor-wise, was therefore in order.

But in between the stars and the entities were a host of other actors who had the honour to lip-sync to Rafi’s voice. These were often character actors, or men who acted as villains. Even, in cases like Sanjay Khan, Premnath and Ajit, men who did appear in a fair number of films in leading roles, but cannot be said to have ever reached the heights of popularity or success of, say, a Dilip Kumar or Dev Anand, or even a Biswajit. They were the in betweens: not at all obscure, but not the Jubilee Kumar types.