Not Monday blues, but...

What does a man in love look like? Shammi Kapoor in the song Ehsaan tera hoga mujh par from the 1961 blockbuster Junglee. What does a man in love sound like? Mohd Rafi, who sang the song.

Junglee, starring Shammi (October 21, 1931 - August 14, 2011) and the beauteous debutante Saira Banu, was directed by Subodh Mukerji, the grand-uncle of actresses Kajol and Rani Mukerji and filmmaker Ayan Mukerji.

The breezy romcom is best remembered for the boisterous number, Yahoo! Chahe koi mujhe junglee kahe, where Shammi and Saira cavort in the snow. Yahoo! catapulted Shammi into bona fide stardom, beyond the looming shadow of his brother Raj Kapoor. In the era of the Dilip Kumar-Raj Kapoor-Dev Anand triumvirate, Shammi's Elvis Presley-James Dean energy hit different.

In Ehsaan tera hoga mujh par, people loved the lovesick Shammi emote with his eyes. What they didn't see was Rafi emoting with his voice Shammi's pleading, raw heartache.

Composed by Shankar-Jaikishan in the lovely evening Raag Yaman, with lyrics by Hasrat Jaipuri, Ehsaan tera hoga mujh par is a tandem song sung by two singers — in this case Rafi and Lata Mangeshkar — at different points in the film.

There's no end to the debate over who sang the solo better — Rafi or Lata. But listen to Rafi caressing the lyrics — especially when he says mohabbat — and your heart will melt like a marshmallow in hot cocoa.

Ehsaan tera hoga mujh par/ Dil chahta hai woh kahne do/ Mujhe tumse mohabbat ho gai hai/ Mujhe palkon ki chhaon mein rehne do. If the mukhda has your heart already, wait for the antara. Tumne mujhko hasna sikhaya, rone kahoge ro lenge ab. The scale shifts sharply, but Rafi's classical training and velvet vocals never lose their embrace. A little further on, listen to Rafi singing "mar bhi gaye toh denge duayein". Soul meets sur.

Legend has it that Rafi (December 24, 1924 - July 31, 1980) started singing as a child by imitating a fakir in his village Kotla Sultan Singh in Punjab. (When he was a little older, he learnt Hindustani classical music under Ustad Abdul Wahid Khan and Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan.) As the titan of playback, he imitated actors so well that his singing did most of their acting. Be it top hero or struggler, comedian or character artiste. Madhuban mein Radhika nache re (Dilip Kumar, Kohinoor), Din dhal jaye hai raat na jaye (Dev Anand, Guide), Teri bindiya re (Amitabh Bachchan, Abhimaan), Sar jo tera chakraye (Johnny Walker, Pyaasa), Tu Hindu banega na Musalman banega (Manmohan Krishna, Dhool Ka Phool), Ek tera saath humko do jahan se pyara hai (Ajay, Wapas) — Rafi sings for names big and small, always adding to the actor's lustre. Ask Kishore Kumar. Rafi sang Mann mora bawara for the actor Kishore in the film Raagini.

Shammi, who would have turned 95 on Wednesday, owed his iconic loverboy persona almost entirely to Rafi. When Rafi died suddenly of a massive heart attack, a distraught Shammi said: "My voice is gone." A tribute unlike any other.