Recently, the news that more than 80% of Bombay Municipal Corporators could not sing the National Anthem - since they didn't know the words! - truly appalled me and set me thinking! Though I admittedly don't have the same problem [:-)] it dawned on me that I barely know our National Song (that's "Vande Mataram" for the ignoramuses!).
So, I thought, let me share this with you all.
Take a deep breath and...
THE NATIONAL ANTHEM
Jana Gana Mana (Bengali: Jôno Gôno Mono) is the national anthem of India. Written in highly Sanskritized Bengali, it is the first of five stanzas of a Brahmo hymn composed and scored by Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore. It was first sung at the Calcutta Session of the Indian National Congress,on 27 December 1911. Jana Gana Mana was officially adopted by the Constituent Assembly as the Indian national anthem on January 24, 1950. The music for the "current version" is said to be derived from a composition for the song by Ram Singh Thakur, although some dispute this.
A formal rendition of the national anthem takes about forty-eight to fifty-two seconds. A shortened version consisting of the first and last lines (and taking about 20 seconds to play) is also staged occasionally. Rabindranath Tagore also composed the music for another Indian poem Vande Mataram.
Jana Gana Mana – the tranliteratiom
Jana gana mana adhināyaka jaya hē
Bhārata bhāgya Vidhātā
Pañjāba Sindhu Gujarāta Marāthā
Drāvida Utkala Banga
Vindhya Himācala Yamunā Gangā
Ucchala jaladhi taranga
Tava śubha nāmē jāgē
Tava śubha āśisha māgē
Gāhē tava jaya gāthā
Jana gana mangala dāyaka jaya hē
Bhārata bhāgya vidhātā
Jaya hē jaya hē jaya hē
Jaya jaya jaya jaya hē
Jana Gana Mana – the Translation
O! Dispenser of India's destiny, thou art the ruler of the minds of all people
Thy name rouses the hearts of Punjab, Sindh, Gujarat, the Maratha country,
in the Dravida country, Utkala and Bengal;
It echoes in the hills of the Vindhyas and Himalayas,
it mingles in the rhapsodies of the pure waters of Yamuna and the Ganges.
They chant only thy name.
They seek only thy auspicious blessings.
They sing only the glory of thy victory.
The salvation of all people waits in thy hands,
O! Dispenser of India's destiny, thou art the ruler of the minds of all people
Victory to thee, Victory to thee, Victory to thee,
Victory, Victory, Victory, Victory to thee!.
VANDE MATARAM
Vande Mataram (Sanskrit: vaMdo maatrma\ Vande Mātaram, Bengali: বন্দে মাতরম Bônde Matorom; English Translation: Bow to thee Mother ) is the national song of India , distinct from the national anthem of India "Jana Gana Mana". The song was composed by Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay in a mixture of Bengali and Sanskrit and the first political occasion where it was sung was the 1896 session of the Indian National Congress.
In 2003, BBC World Service conducted an international poll to choose ten most famous songs of all time. Around 7000 songs were selected from all over the world. According to BBC, people from 155 countries /island voted. Vande Mataram was second in top 10 songs.
History and significance
It is generally believed that the concept of Vande Mataram came to Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay when he was still a government official under the British Raj. Around 1870, the British rulers of India had declared that singing of God Save the Queen would be mandatory. He wrote it in a spontaneous session using words from two languages he was expert in, Sanskrit and Bengali. However, the song was initially highly criticized for the difficulty in pronunciation of some of the words. The song first appeared in Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay's book Anandamatha (pronounced Anondomôţh in Bengali), published in 1882 amid fears of a ban by British Raj. However, the song itself was actually written in 1876. Jadunath Bhattacharya set the tune for this song just after it was written.
"Vande Mataram" was the national cry for freedom from British oppression during the freedom movement. Large rallies, fermenting initially in Bengal, in the major metropolis of Calcutta, would work themselves up into a patriotic fervour by shouting the slogan "Vande Mataram," or "Hail to the Mother(land)!". The British, fearful of the potential danger of an incited Indian populace, at one point banned the utterance of the motto in public forums, and imprisoned many freedom fighters for disobeying the proscription. Rabindranath Tagore sang Vande Mataram in 1896 at the Calcutta Congress Session held at Beadon Square. Dakhina Charan Sen sang it five years later in 1901 at another session of the Congress at Calcutta. Poet Sarala Devi Chaudurani sang the song in the Benares Congress Session in 1905. Lala Lajpat Rai started a journal called Vande Mataram from Lahore.Hiralal Sen made India's first political film in 1905 which ended with the chant. Matangini Hazra's last words as she was shot to death by the Crown police were Vande Mataram.
In 1907, Bhikaiji Cama (1861-1936) created the first version of India's national flag (the Tiranga) in Stuttgart, Germany in 1907. It had Vande Mataram written on it in the middle band.
A number of lyrical and musical experiments have been done and many versions of the song have been created and released throughout the 20th century. Many of these versions have employed traditional South Asian classical ragas. Versions of the song have been visualized on celluloid in a number of films including Leader (film), Amar asha and Anandamath. It is widely believed that the tune set for All India Radio station version was composed by Ravi Shankar.
Vande Mataram – the transliteration
vande mataram
sujalaam suphalaam
malayaja sheethalam
shashya shyamalaam
Maataram, vande maataram
Shubhra jothsana pulakitha yaminim
Phulla kusumitat drumah dala shobhinim
Suhasinim, Sumadhura bhAshinim
sukhadaam varadhaam, maataram
Vande mataraam
Vande Mataram – the translation
My obeisance to Mother India!
With flowing beneficial waters
Filled with choicest fruits
With Sandal scented winds
Green with the harvest
O mother! My obeisance to you!
Ecstatic moonlit nights
The plants blooming with flowers
Sweet speaker of sweet languages
Fount of blessings,
Mother, I salute you!
SAARE JAHAN SE ACHCHA
Saare Jahan Se Achchha is one of the enduring patriotic poems of the Urdu language. Written originally for children in the ghazal style of Urdu poetry by poet Muhammad Iqbal, the poem was published in the weekly journal Ittehad on 16 August 1904. Recited by Iqbal the following year at Government College, Lahore, now in Pakistan, it quickly became an anthem of opposition to the British rule in India. The song, an ode to Hindustan—the land comprising present-day Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan—both celebrated and cherished the land even as it lamented its age-old anguish. Also known as Tarana-e-Hindi (Urdu: ترانۂ ہندی "Anthem of the People of Hindustan"), it was later published in 1924 in the Urdu book Bang-i-Dara.
Iqbal was a lecturer at the Government College, Lahore at that time, and was invited by student Lala Har Dayal to preside over a function. Instead of delivering a speech, Iqbal sang Saare Jahan Se Achcha. The song, in addition to embodying yearning and attachment to the land of Hindustan, expressed "cultural memory" and had an elegiac quality. In 1905, the 27-year old Iqbal was still in his idealistic phase and viewed the future society of the subcontinent as both a pluralistic and composite Hindu-Muslim culture. Later that year he left for Europe for a three-year sojourn that was to transform him into an Islamic philosopher and a visionary of a future Islamic society.
In 1910, Iqbal wrote another song for children, Tarana-e-Milli (Anthem of the Religious Community), which was composed in the same metre and rhyme scheme as Saare Jahan Se Achcha, but which renounced much of the sentiment of the earlier song. For example, the sixth stanza of Saare Jahan Se Achcha (1904) is often quoted as proof of Iqbal's secular outlook:
mażhab nahīñ sikhātā āpas meñ bair rakhnā
hindī haiñ ham, vat̤an hai hindostāñ hamārā
or,
Religion does not teach us to bear ill-will among ourselves
We are of Hind, our homeland is Hindustan.
In contrast, the first stanza of Tarana-e-Milli (1910) reads:
chīn-o-arab hamārā, hindostān hamārā
muslim hain ham, vatan hai sārā jahān hamārā
or,
Central Asia and Arabia are ours, Hindustan is ours
We are Muslims, the whole world is our homeland.
Iqbal's world view had now changed; it had become both global and Islamic. Instead of singing of India, "our homeland," the new song proclaimed that "our homeland is the whole world." Two decades later, in his presidential address to the Muslim League annual conference in Allahabad in 1930, he was to propose a separate nation-state in the Muslim majority areas of the sub-continent, an idea that inspired the creation of Pakistan.
In spite of its creator's disavowal of it, Saare Jahan Se Achcha has remained popular in India for over a century. Mahatma Gandhi is said to have sung it over a hundred times when he was imprisoned at Yerawada Jail in Pune in the 1930s. The poem was set to music in the 1950s by sitar maestro Ravi Shankar and recorded by singer Lata Mangeshkar. Stanzas (1), (3), (4), and (6) of the song became an unofficial national anthem in India, and were also turned into the official quick march of the Indian Armed Forces.
Rakesh Sharma, the first Indian cosmonaut, employed the first line of the song in 1984 to describe to then prime minister Indira Gandhi how India appeared from outer space.[8] Current prime minister, Manmohan Singh, quoted the poem at his first press conference. The song is, however, little known in Pakistan or Bangladesh.
Saare Jahan Se Accha - the transliteration
Sāre jahāñ se achchā hindostāñ hamārā
ham bulbuleñ haiñ us kī vuh gulsitāñ hamārā
ġhurbat meñ hoñ agar ham, rahtā hai dil vat̤an meñ
samjho vuhīñ hameñ bhī dil ho jahāñ hamārā
parbat vuh sab se ūñchā, hamsāyah āsmāñ kā
vuh santarī hamārā, vuh pāsbāñ hamārā
godī meñ kheltī haiñ us kī hazāroñ nadiyāñ
gulshan hai jin ke dam se rashk-e janāñ hamārā
ay āb-rūd-e gangā! vuh din haiñ yād tujh ko?
utarā tire kināre jab kāravāñ hamārā
mażhab nahīñ sikhātā āpas meñ bair rakhnā
hindī haiñ ham, vat̤an hai hindostāñ hamārā
yūnān-o-miṣr-o-rumā sab miṭ gaʾe jahāñ se
ab tak magar hai bāqī nām-o-nishāñ hamārā
kuchh bāt hai kih hastī miṭtī nahīñ hamārī
sadiyoñ rahā hai dushman daur-e zamāñ hamārā
iqbāl! koī maḥram apnā nahīñ jahāñ meñ
malūm kyā kisī ko dard-e nihāñ hamārā!
Saare Jahan se Achcha – the translation
Better than the entire world, is our Hindustan,
We are its nightingales, and it (is) our garden abode
If we are in an alien place, the heart remains in the homeland,
Know us to be only there where our heart is.
That tallest mountain, that shade-sharer of the sky,
(It) is our sentry, (it) is our watchman
In its lap frolic those thousands of rivers,
Whose vitality makes our garden the envy of Paradise.
O the flowing waters of the Ganges, do you remember that day
When our caravan first disembarked on your waterfront?
Religion does not teach us to bear ill-will among ourselves
We are of Hind, our homeland is Hindustan.
In a world in which ancient Greece, Egypt, and Rome have all vanished without trace
Our own attributes (name and sign) live on today.
Such is our existence that it cannot be erased
Even though, for centuries, the cycle of time has been our enemy.
Iqbal! We have no confidant in this world
What does any one know of our hidden pain?
Oh! By the by, the BMC legislators then passed a resolution so that only the tune of the National Anthem would be played in the esteemed House henceforth - & thus no longer would they be bound to mouth the words!!
MERA BHARAT MAHAAN!!
And yes, on my part, I propose to have learnt VANDE MATARAM by our next Republic Day! Promise!!
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