Some of his celebrated songs include "Sarg tara junyali rata ko sunalo", "Fyonladiya, Dekh hilma chandi ku batana", "Chaita ki chaitwali", "Bhana ho rangeela bhana", "Satpuli ka senna meri bau surila", "Tile dharu bola Madhuli", "Tyere chadri chhutgye pichhne", and "Sauli ghura ghur". His first recorded album, "Sauli ghura ghur", was a commercial hit. Rahi was also a songwriter and poet. His poetry collections include "Dil ko Umaal" (1966), "Dhai" (1980), "Ramchhol" (1981), and "Geet Ganga" (2010). Rahi also wrote monographs and composed music for ballets. Rahi was considered to be the only person who could play all the folk instruments of Uttarakhand, including the dhol damaun (drums), the shehnai, the daur, the thaali, and the huruki. He also had knowledge of the unknown tala sequences (beat patterns) unique to "Pahari" music and would seamlessly incorporate these elements in his musical presentations. Rahi collected and curated more than 2,500 age-old traditional songs covering various folk forms of Uttarakhand including "Khuder Geet", "Sanskar Geet", "Barhai", "Panwara", "Mela Geet", "Jhaura, Pandavani", "Chaunfla", "Thadiya", and "Jaagar". His book, "A Comprehensive Study of the Songs, Musical Instruments, and Dances of the Central Himalayas", was to be published by Uttaranchal Sahitya, Sanskriti evam Kala Parishad. He was also an avid collector of folk musical instruments of Uttarakhand. Rahi sold flutes for a living during his early days in Delhi, to which he had moved from his native Garhwal in 1957. His search for a stable livelihood finally ended successfully when he got a government job with the telecom department. Rahi lived in a rented house in the Shakarpur locality of Delhi for 40 years. An anecdote told by his family is that Rahi chose to invest the little finances that he had on recording Uttarakhandi folk music, rather than an investing in a house.