My friend Himanshu Kapadia and many others who shared the same opinion as me on the new version of Mile Sur Mera Tumhara, the epic song on National Integration, have made me write this note. While we all feel, this one lacks the sense of awe and patriotism and goosebump generating capacities of the earlier ones, here is my reckoning of the whole thing. Do treat it as my humble and personal opinion and you may also feel free to bash me, add your own and agree in unison. Here are a few points which I think might be the main reason behind it not having the kind of impact as anticipated by us:
1)The first one, unlike this, was a novelty concept. Today, we have videos featuring many big people for each issue, right from the girl child, to elections to even cheering the cricket team for a world cup. Whereas, earlier having such big names in a video itself was enough to create ripples.
2)The Cricket World, as per a friend of mine related to this says, was deliberately overlooked. I think of it as stupid because, a video on national integration is incomplete without Sachin Tendulkar (the epitome of national intergration IMHO.) Can't yet digest, having a punk like Shahid Kapoor, score over him.
3)A few also thought that parts of India, mainly the North-East were ignored. While, North India was somewhat represented through Bhupen Hazarika, it was the complete omission of Corporate India that baffled me most.People like Narayan Murthy, Anand Mahindra, Ratan Tata, One of the Ambanis and Kumar Mangalam Birla together in a frame would have created much more impact than 18 SRKs, 20 ABs and 30 Deepikas together wouldn't.
That said, I think, it was a nice thing to revive the song and the inclusion of a few of my favorite musicians right from ARR, SEL, Rahul Sharma, Amaan n Ayaan, Anoushka and Sivamani made it watchable. Rahman was presented in the best manner ever. We often see him in videos, arms spread and singing in his usual high pitch. However, this one, with him playing the Continuum was done extremely well.
M
