Saurav Kishan (Chhota Rafi)

Some Lesser Known Facts About Saurav Kishan

• Saurav Kishan is an Indian singer, and he is popularly known as “Chhota Rafi.”

• His grandfather was a homoeopathy doctor and was very fond of music. It was Saurav’s grandfather who inspired him to start learning music.
  

  

  

• At the age of 3, he started learning music, and when he was a three-and-a-half-year-old, he performed for the first time at a concert on Doordarshan.

• He then participated as a contestant in the TV singing reality show ‘Gandharva Sangeetam’ in 2008. In the show, late Indian music director Johnson noticed him and realised that Saurav’s voice was almost similar to the legendary Indian singer Mohammed Rafi. He then nicknamed Saurav as “Chhota Rafi.” In an interview, Saurav said,

Music is my passion; I remember singing at a music reality show when I was 10, where late Johnson Master (music composer who worked in Malayalam cinema) said my singing sounded like listening to a Chhota Rafi sa’ab! I happened to sing the song at Gandharva Sangeetam and after listening to me, Johnson sir asked me to focus only on Mohammad Rafi songs and nicknamed me Chhota Rafi.”

• He is trained in various music forms. He was trained in Carnatic music under the singing guru Pratapan, and he got his training in the Hindustani music under his guru, Bijai Sursain.

  

• In one of his singing performances, the eldest son of Mohammed Rafi, Shahid Rafi, listened to his song and said,

You sound so much like my father!”

• He is well trained in singing a range of songs like fast numbers, patriotic songs, romantic numbers, qawwalis, bhajans, and classical songs.

• Since his 12th standard, he has been performing at Mohammed Rafi Foundation’s events at Tagore Hall on Kozhikode beach.

  

• In 2020, during the coronavirus lockdown in India, he uploaded a music video that was reposted by Judish Raj, and it went viral on social media. In this video, he is singing the Hindi song “Teri Aankhon Ke Siva Duniya Mein Rakha Kya Hai” from the Hindi film ‘Chirag’ (1969).

• In 2020, for this song, he received appreciation from various Indian celebrities like Anand Mahindra, Shankar Mahadevan, and Niti Aayog CEO and former Kozhikode Collector Amitabh Kant.

• hough he cannot speak Hindi fluently, he has memorised the lyrics of 800 Hindi songs of the legendary Indian singer Late Mohammed Rafi.

• He has also won many awards for his singing.

• He loves to spend time with his pet dogs. He has two pet dogs, and one of them is Brownie.