Sunday, February 26, 2012

Goose bumps !

That feel is back. Unmistakably.

For many years, I was enamored by songs that set the patriotic pulse
racing. For over 7 years, my mobile ringtone was the indian national song,
Sare jahan se achcha hindustan hamara. Ironically, the poet, Mohammed
iqbal, was amongst the first to float the idea of the two nation theory,
which culminated in the partition of india into two dominions in 1947.

These were also the words that Rakesh Sharma, the first indian national
to go in space, told the then prime minister, indira Gandhi, when she asked
him how was india looking like from space.


The indian national anthem was a daily feature of my school assembly, and
was something I always looked forward to.

It always invigorated, it always charged up the morning. It never became my
mobile ring tone, because I felt obligated to stand up every time jana Gana
mana played, and it was not a great idea to stand up every time the mobile
phone rang.

Jana gana mana, became the reason I started liking rabindranath
tagore, its poet. My none too venerated feelings towards tagore earlier were on
account of my bangla textbook, sahaj path, or easy book, of which he was
the author. I used to barely pass the subject ( most times I failed - once I scored a 0 on 10 in a class test ) when I moved to calcutta in
the 80s, and poor performance in bangla meant missing out on an overall
good rank. This led me to attribute my poor academic performance in those
early days in calcutta to tagore.

Redemption for tagore came when I started loving jana gana mana, a few
years later. That he was the only person in the world to author the
national anthem of two countries, Bangladesh being the other, further
elevated his status in the 7 year old's perception.

Later day controversies, speculation around tagore having written jana gana
mana in honour of the prince of Wales' visit to india, could do little to
diminish my adoration of the song.

The words had always been soul stirring !

Yet today, during a random surfing of you tube, when I chanced upon this
link below, I experienced a very different jana gana mana. There are no
words in it, as It is from a group of physically challenged students, who
use sign language to sing, if I can call it that.
The goose bumps are back, the soul is stirring again.
Have seen this video over 20 times in the last hour, and want to see more.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VW-tH9Y6nno

Go ahead, help yourself. Feel uplifted !

2 comments:

Saumya said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Saumya said...

amazing.... i couldn't hold back my tears... Thank you Deepak :)