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A casual survey of whether people knew the National Anthem threw up a sad result. PREMA MANMADHAN on why generation next is unsure about the country's national song
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IN FERVENT Sankarabharanam, `Jana Gana Mana... ,' our National Anthem, brings on gooseflesh, if the ambience is right and the singer, duly charged. One relives the pain of national suppression and the unconditional joy of freedom and oneness: Patriotism, in short. But ask someone at random to sing the National Anthem. Don't be surprised if they get stuck in the middle. Not if you are a student, for it is still sung in schools. But once out of school, in the new scheme of things, one hardly gets to hear the National Anthem at all. Look at the result of this little bit of research done on the National Anthem:
Lalitha, a domestic help, felt insulted when asked whether she knew `Jana Gana Mana... ' "Of course," she retorted and started singing, but got stuck halfway. She could not remember the line, `Tubha subha....... ' She was shocked herself. Another educated housewife got stuck at the same place. "One hardly gets to hear it nowadays," she said, as an excuse.
A final year engineering student started off confidently, but `Tubhasubha naame... ' became his Waterloo too. Yet another prominent Kochiite sang, `Jaya jaya jaya jaya hai' soon after the first two lines! Said a young L.I.C. official in the midst of the first line itself,
" Can you please prompt me?"
Every one of the 23 people this question was asked, mostly youngsters, requested that their names not be mentioned. They were ashamed and shocked that they could have forgotten it. `Vande Mataram... ,' thanks to A. R Rahman, is hugely popular, though it is much longer than `Jana gana mana... ' And how the nation sang in chorus, at school and college days, at fashion shows and at almost any big gathering. And young blood swore by `Vande... ' for one, innovation was not possible in the tune, like `Vanda Mataram... ' And vibrant picturisation was not possible. Perhaps propriety stood in the way.
In most other countries, the National Anthem is sung or played ever so often that it comes as second nature when the tune is heard. But in our land, common folks hardly ever get to hear it. "How can we remember the lines when we don't hear it at all," asks a college girl. "True, we learnt it in school, but since we don't sing it usually, like other songs and we don't get to hear it anywhere, how can we be expected to remember it," she asks, justifying her inability to sing the lines.
Cinemas used to play it once upon a time, many moons ago. Not any more. Most public functions do not end with the anthem now, as it did then. Only in schools do we still hear the anthem, but then how many of us have school links?
The new order in Maharashtra is that the National Anthem must be played at the cinemas, after the show is over to make people more familiar with `Jana Gana Mana..' Patriotism and all things national come to fore only during Independence Day and Republic Day. The National Anthem competitions that many organisations, like the YMCA, conduct are, again, confined to schools. So, there is little involvement of the public in such ventures.
The lines by Rabindranath Tagore, tuned by Capt. Ram Singh of the Indian National Army of Subhash Chandra Bose, was adopted as the National Anthem by the Constituent Assembly on January 24, 1950. The 52-second anthem has thus a soldierly beat and tune, to induce patriotism.
Patriotism, in the days of Kargil and flashes of it during Indo-Pak cricket matches, is largely taken for granted by our `junta,' especially, in the global village where people work 18 hours a day.
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