Rahi was born in 1939 in the green watery world of Maldah, a town in the Bengal State of what is now India. He was a precocious and handsome child, as can be seen from a picture of his childhood.

When in 1947, the Muslim majority areas of former India broke off from India and became Pakistan: what is now Bangladesh, became the eastern wing of Pakistan. Rahi's father Mohammed Younas migrated from Maldah, which fell to the share of India and came to Rajshahi, in the east. In this tranquil little university town Rahi received his schooling.

The artist-uncle, Ziauddin, became Rahi's hero and he looked up with admiration to some paintings of his uncle hanging in the house. Eager to emulate the wondrous creation, he drew a picture on his slate and hung it beside the paintings, as if the black slate, the white chalk drawing and the wooden white frame of the slate were a painting of sorts. In this way, he kept demanding and getting many slates because the pictures he drew were not rubbed out but preserved in the ready-made frame for others and mainly himself to admire

Rahi received his school education in Rajshahi and always used to come first in his drawing class. His drawing teacher, Mr.Suraish, liked rahi very much and once came to Rahi's father Mr.Younus and said "Take care of your son for he will one day become a favor artist." Rahi soon proved true the forecasts of his teacher for when he was in class IX, there was an open paintings competition held for the whole vast district of Rajshahi (area equal to Multan) and rahi, a stripling if fifteen won the first prize. He had submitted two entries in water color, size 2 / 3 feet, one of which showed cows returning home at the end of the day and the other a boat, with two boatmen, sailing on a calm river against the setting sun.

Even at that young age Rahi had developed a fascination for the old masters of the West, like Michel Angelo, Leonardo and Rubens. He recalls the pleasure it gave him to copy MichelAngelo's drawings, especially to copy and study his foreshortening of different limbs and members.

His career was clearly marked for him and as soon as he passed high school he made for Dacca, the capital of East Pakistan(now Bangladesh) and joined the newly set up Government College of Art. There he had the good fortune to study under such eminent and outstanding teachers as Zainul Abedin and Kibria who had made a name for themselves not only on national but international level. He was given a firm grounding in drawing by Zain ul Abedin and in composition by Abdul Razzaq and initiated into modern styles of painting by the highly original and gifted artist, Aminul Islam, whose influence is clearly traceable in Rahi's work.

Rahi not only drew the fullest benefit from his teachers at college but was also an adept student in the school of nature. He adored the thousands of rivers, rivulets and streams that flow through his native land, softly rustling along in winter and menacingly flooding in summer. He, the gigantic monsoon clouds the stormy rains and the gorgeous sunsets that followed. He watched and worshipped the millions of flowers that bloom on the trees, shrubs, creepers and even the weeds and grasses of his land. Above all, he loved the people, the men, women and children, and his loving studies of their forms and faces, dating back to his student days, are proof of the deep attachment he felt to them. Even today, his love of humanity and his warm feeling for mankind is manifest from his friendly eyes, his softly spoken words and his friendly touch.

It was such sentiments that led him to spend some weeks in the dense hill forests of Chittagong Hill Tracts to hold close communion with nature and the unspoiled primitive denizens of the woods. For three months he  lived with them, slept where they slept and ate what they ate. He describes with pleasure the incredible hospitality and warm friendship expended by these simple folk and his own enjoyment of their strange but simple foods and ways of life. Interesting was the uninhabited response to little friendly distress by the woodland maidens who felt no embarrassment in expressing love and affection and drawing close in bonds of friendship. In fact, he was dismayed to find that his small gestures of common friendship drew such a passionate response from a warm-hearted forest maid. She took it for granted that he would stay with her for ever, and declared firmly that she would not let him go. The strong grip of the female hands provided proof, if any proof was needed, that every word was meant in earnest. Rahi was scared when told by others that she would kill him if he tried to run away from her for these "flower children" of the green woods were also adept in wielding the curved knife used by these woodsmen and woodswomen for common daily work. Rahi was able to make good his escape but not before he had drawn and painted heaps of sketches of his woodland love and other denizens of the woods and the scenes and sights of the woods themselves.

Drawing fullest benefit from his art education, Rahi distinguished himself in 1962 by graduating in the first division with first position at the end of his five years course at the College of Art and Craft

He soon presented his first offering of paintings of his people by holding a one-man show the very next year after graduation. After he had held an exhibition in Dacca, he was invited by the Pakistan Arts Council of Karachi to hold an exhibition there. Both the exhibitions were well received and were mostly sold out.

The Arts Council, Karachi, was running arts classes in the Council building and Rahi was offered a post as Art Teacher which he accepted. That is how career began as a teacher of art and this he has continued till today.

While this raw young lad from Rajshahi was winning his spurs in the great metropolis of Karachi, two sisters, former students of the Arts School of Lucknow had also migrated to Pakistan and set up a small art school for girls which they called The Mina School of Art. Hajra Zuberi, the charming younger sister, and Rabia Zuberi, the elder, were both bitten by the art bug and not only worked as creative artists but carried on their weak shoulders the burdensome sense of a mission to spread art through education.

Rahi has been inspired by the same ideas through his dedicated teacher, Zain ul Abedin, who sacrificed his own meteoric career as an artist on the altar of art education, having spent the best years of his life in teaching and creating artists.

Hajra met Rahi at the latter's art exhibition in Karachi Arts Council and the two right away liked each other. It began as a business partnership, when Hajra and Rabia asked Rahi to work as a teacher in the Mina Art School. Rahi agreed and thus began an association that took on a romantic turn and brought them still closer together.