When My Voice Meets Yours!

The nation and the state of it could easily be the most favourite topic amongst its diaspora farther west. I often find like-minded youngsters out here get sudden jolts of resurgent nationalism - an urge to become the change agent and pull India out of the mortifying poverty and casteism and the brazen red-tapism and hypocrisy. When we think back, wasn't that something we intentionally did without when we were in India, right in the eye of the storm, ordained to remain nurturing the lesions that everyday life scraped us through?

Todays' was a cloudy weekend evening, which had me, my laptop with me and my roomie beside me, boringly sipping tea, looking reactionlessly at each other, having, until that time, already exhausted all those usual and unusual topics to feed our mouths and ears on. I, out of curiosity, started playing a Bhimsen Joshi audio-stream, and the next minute, I found my friend declare, without any sort of provocation, that he, Maharashtrian parochialism apart, admired Bhimsen Joshi with all his heart. We caught on to talking about Bhimsen, and then he suddenly broke-into a full-throttled rendition of "sur ki nadiyaan..." . Figuring it out that letting him aloose would unbalance my genteel senses, I decided to try and give him a taste of the original. And I came out with the below...

"Indian television viewers cannot forget some of the memorable songs that were produced by Lok Seva Sanchar Parishad (LSSP). They used to come as fillers but were laden with such a melodic content that people did not want to put the television sets off or leave for a break. LSSP recognized many pioneering achievers in various fields and presented many integrated videos wherein these people emphasized the importance of nationalistic spirit that needs to be sustained...the imagery they captured were vivid, spellbinding and pretty much completely representative of [the diversity that is] India. The current world of Cable TV is a little too busy to stop and look at the beautiful work that Doordarshan had produced...Hardly [any] nationalistic themes come in as "fillers" due to the rampage of the private sector to advertise the[ir] products." -(as in http://www.dhool.com/sotd2/636.html)

Read through the song's lyrics once:

"Mile sur mera tumharaa, Tho sur bane hamaraa....
Sur kee nadhiyaan har disha se behkee saagar mein milee.
Baadalon ka roop leker barse halke halke...
Mile sur mera tumharaa..
Toh... sur bane hamaara...

Mile sur mera tumhara...

Chaain taraj tahin nyay taraj
Ek but baniye saayen taraj

Tera sur mile mere sur de naal
Milke bane ek nava surtaal

Mile sur mera tumharaa..
Toh... sur bane hamaara...

Mohnja sur tohi desa pyara mile jadein
Geet ashaanjo madhur tarano bane tadein

Sur ka dariya bahte saagar me mile
Badlaan da roop leike barasan holle haule

Isaindhal namm iruvarin suramum namadhakum..
Dhisai veru aanalum aazi ser aarugal
Mugilai mazaiyai pozivadu pol isai...
Namm isai....
(Thik thakida thathikakidA....thaka thimi thaka junu)

Nanna dhwanige ninna dhwani-ya,
Seridante namma dhwaniya..
Naa swaramu nee swaramu sangammamai,
Mana swaram ga avatarinchey

Ninde swaravum ningalude swaravum
Otthuchernnu nammude swaramai....

Tomaar shoor moder shoor
Srishti koroor koi ekshoor[2]...
Sriishti karoon woi katha

Toma mora swarer milan
Srishti kare chalbochatano

Male sur jo taro maro,
Bane aapno sur niralo

Majhya tumchya julta tara
Madhur suranchya barasti dhara

Sur ki nadiya har disha se
Behke saagar mein mile...
Baadlo ka roop leke
Barse halke halke..

Oh...Mile sur mera tumhara
Toh....sur bane hamara...

Mile sur mera tumhara
Toh sur bane hamara...[3]"

I also found the following:
video of 'mile sur mera tumhara':
- brilliantly executed by the university of idaho students:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5461704286923866974

- a me-too version by the MIT students, which is not so universal:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=951587037091144085

the song as streaming audio:
http://www.dhool.com/sotd2/636.html
--
http://www.pha.jhu.edu/~sundar/tp/jinglebell.html gives us a running commentary of the original video. (You'll have to bear with his unnecessary bad-mouthing)

You can think of few other instruments to inculcate a feeling of oneness in such testing times as these where forces internal as well as external hold the nation's integrity on ransom, by spreading divisiveness of religion and religion to ones advantage. And can you imagine the result of my productive digression? My friend started singing the Malayalam lines, and I started liking the Marathi ones. It left me with an urge to let you feel the pull of the integrating nationalism once again!!

I thought I was not lucky enough to catch hold of the enchanting original video anywhere, for once. Yet, some combined effort to find the Baje Sargam song (you can get it at megaupload.com/?d=NM71YDVD) finally lead us to it.

- original video of Mile Sur:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LZ7l7nwU60
( Relishing enough, though for the poor video quality. Enjoy!)



And now, now! Did I not get too tired to smoke out the original video of Baje Sur? :) (added May 26, 2008)



I then remembered my favourite one, which I always used to look up for whenever it appeared on our mini-screen: "Sun sun sun mere munne sun…..pyaar ki ganga bahe, desh main ekta rahe….", this was the one in which Mammootty appeared, along with a lot of other contemporary celluloid heroes of Bolly, Tolly, Kolly and all those Woods. I went through tons of material for this, but sadly, few were even talking about it, I found some mild references that told me that that this song was also a part of Khalnayak. The original was sung by Mohammed Aziz. I would have been overjoyed if I get at least the audio.I managed to get the lyrics somehow:

"sun sun sun mere nanhe sun, sun sun sun mere munne sun (starts with Jackie Shroff)
pyar ki ganga bahein desh mein ekaa rahein
sun sun sun meri nanhi sun, sun sun sun meri munni sun
pyar ki ganga bahein desh mein ekaa rahein

bhasm kaali raat ho roshani ki baat ho
dosti ki baat ho zindagi ki baat ho
baat ho insaan ki baat hindustaan ki
saara bhaarat ye kahein pyaar ki ganga bahein
pyar ki ganga bahein desh mein ekaa rahein

ab na dushmani palein ab na koi ghar jalein
ab nahi ujade suhaag ab nahi failein ye aag
ab na ho bachhe anaath ab na ho nafarat ki ghaat
saara bhaarat ye kahein pyaar ki ganga bahein
pyar ki ganga bahein desh mein ekaa rahein

saare bachche bachchiyaa saare budhe aur jawa yaane sab hindustan
ek manjil par milein ek saath phir chalein
ek saath phir rahein (ek saath phir kahein - 2) phir kahein
pyar ki ganga bahein desh mein ekaa rahein - 2
desh mein ekaa rahein saara bharat ye kahein
saara bharat ye kahein desh mein ekaa rahein

(and..after this line is 2 sec silence and then suddenly all of them sing together)
saara bharat yeh kahe desh mein ekaa rahe
desh mein ekaa rahein saara bharat yeh kahe
saara bharat yeh kahe desh mein ekaa rahe
desh mein ekaa rahein saara bharat yeh kahe "

Listen to the song here:


Now, "desh ki ekta" has led its way to Ekta Kapoor's tearjerkers. I remembered my school days when I imagined myself to be the CEO of Doordarshan. Doordarshan is still a behemoth, which can contribute much better, but spoils itslef by doing little. The internet age has taken over, and it's great that some enthusiasts have preserved and shared such wonderful pieces of art for our posterity.