Friday, August 25, 2006
Vande Mataram
Vande Mataram has long been sung as one of the National songs in India. In fact couple of albums have been released with that title. First by Rehman for BHarat Bala and second was composed by genius Ranjeet Barot. I still remember the song with vocals by Om Puri. Bankim Chandra wrote the song and there is excellenet translation available by Shree Aurobindo.
Why it reminds me today is because of the controversy. People have no time to earn living but politicians will squeeze every bit of their blood creating controversies. Every radical party in India will try to take sides and entice people to get involved. I remember my conversations with Taher Vohra (my good friend) regarding this when we were riding BEST bus. His point was that Vande Mataram being national song and patriotic in nature should not be remixed as done by Rehman. You do not mess with national values. I am a huge rehman music fan and may be because of that I was of the opinion that freedom of speech also involves composing an album like this. I would not respect nationa anthem being remixed but this is different.
Five or six years ago, I had received email form Venky (I was in Infosys that time) suggesting that Jana-Gana-Mana the national anthem is actually written to praise Queen of England and so should be changed to something we have. Let me remind you that Gurudev Rabindra Nath Tagore is the only poet in the entire world that has written national anthems for two different countries (India and Bangla desh). He for one is above all this and you know what! Worst case, lets assume that the song was written for the queen. So what? We know the VT railway station was built by British and the rail system and type of governance and the school education system and the postal system and many similar examples can be drawn.
People have become obsessed with changing everything that was once touched by British or was being used by British. This has parallels with the achoot (untouchables) movement in India. Segregation is not the answer here. How much more we will try to divide ourselves. We will divide ourselves by religion, race, color, sect, cast, political orientation, social status, financial status, education, and many more. There are millions of more ways humans can be divided. So why should they stand together? If they all stand together what can they oppose and what can they fight against? Let me give you a list of enemies to fight. If you really have this bad urge to fight then fight against human exploitation, drugs, cancer, AIDS, enemies-of-humanity. If you are one of those who like to fight for something no matter who are you fighting against, then fight FOR democracy, peace, harmony. Is it worth fighting for? Oh… sure YES.
Why it reminds me today is because of the controversy. People have no time to earn living but politicians will squeeze every bit of their blood creating controversies. Every radical party in India will try to take sides and entice people to get involved. I remember my conversations with Taher Vohra (my good friend) regarding this when we were riding BEST bus. His point was that Vande Mataram being national song and patriotic in nature should not be remixed as done by Rehman. You do not mess with national values. I am a huge rehman music fan and may be because of that I was of the opinion that freedom of speech also involves composing an album like this. I would not respect nationa anthem being remixed but this is different.
Five or six years ago, I had received email form Venky (I was in Infosys that time) suggesting that Jana-Gana-Mana the national anthem is actually written to praise Queen of England and so should be changed to something we have. Let me remind you that Gurudev Rabindra Nath Tagore is the only poet in the entire world that has written national anthems for two different countries (India and Bangla desh). He for one is above all this and you know what! Worst case, lets assume that the song was written for the queen. So what? We know the VT railway station was built by British and the rail system and type of governance and the school education system and the postal system and many similar examples can be drawn.
People have become obsessed with changing everything that was once touched by British or was being used by British. This has parallels with the achoot (untouchables) movement in India. Segregation is not the answer here. How much more we will try to divide ourselves. We will divide ourselves by religion, race, color, sect, cast, political orientation, social status, financial status, education, and many more. There are millions of more ways humans can be divided. So why should they stand together? If they all stand together what can they oppose and what can they fight against? Let me give you a list of enemies to fight. If you really have this bad urge to fight then fight against human exploitation, drugs, cancer, AIDS, enemies-of-humanity. If you are one of those who like to fight for something no matter who are you fighting against, then fight FOR democracy, peace, harmony. Is it worth fighting for? Oh… sure YES.
