Written by: Rajeev Wadhwa
Rosh was in his bed, brooding quietly. Isha had almost never seen him as quiet as this before.
He was a battler, always planning, always improvising, never lost. Her heart cried out for him.
No scars of his fight were visible on his body, and his psychological scars she could not see, although she knew full well they were there, and they were deep.
“Want to see an old Hindi movie?” she asked him, wanting to extract him from his sad stillness, and cheer him up a bit.
“Okay,” he looked up at her and smiled. “Maybe something from the 1950s or 60s. Bandini, Bootpolish, Do Bigha Zameen, Do Ankhen Barah Haath, Guide, Satyakaam …”
“But all those movies are depressing,” she objected. “They all move you to tears.”
“They also lift my soul,” he smiled weakly. “Clear my vision.”
She nodded silently and walked out to fetch something from his Library. Riffling quickly through his collection, she picked out ‘Anand Math’.
It was a tragic 1952 film, but she remembered that it had a couple of legendary songs with rousing music. Both those songs were amongst his all-time favorites.
That’s what she would prescribe for him, she decided. She brought the DVD back to his room, put it on, and climbed into bed beside him.
He reclined back comfortably. They watched the film together, in silent harmony, feeling a contentment that long and happily married couples know so well.
When they saw the first of its two legendary songs, she noticed for the first time that the lyrics were all in Sanskrit, and seemed connected with Hindu mythology.
No wonder she had never understood the song, even though she had heard it umpteen times since childhood, and had studied Sanskrit at school.
“Do you understand the meaning of these lyrics?” she paused the film to ask him, wondering how he could have enjoyed it so much.
“A little,” he confessed. “But what the director wants the verses to mean here becomes clearer only in context. His message is clear: Act with faith. Have faith in God, and do your duty with a mind free from anxieties."
Karmanye vaadhicar astey, ma faleshu kadaachana. Ma karmfal hetur bhurma, te sangostva karmani.
“Krishn tells Arjun to do the same thing in Gita (2:47). He tells him that he has the right to act, but no right to the results of his actions. So, he must perform his duties, neither desiring nor fretting about the result (fruit of action).”
“But result motivates action. Causes it in the first place. That’s how us ordinary folk work. Nishkaam Karm (desireless action) of the Vedic Philosophy is so difficult to practice. So, what to do?”
“So, the mind frets. Fear consumes. Fear of losing what we love and have, grips us so hard, that we fritter away what time we have been granted on this Earth, and fail to do what we should have done in that time.”
“Why do I never get any of these messages from anything?” Isha was exasperated at how he could see a meaning in everything.
“Because you aren’t looking,” he smiled painfully. “You aren’t seeking. For you have lost nothing.”
“Great loss can be a great benefactor. Pain a great cleanser. They prepare you. To become a ready receptor. To find solutions. To seek deliverance.”
“When your search becomes so intense, that nothing but your quest remains, nature delivers. Nothing changes in the world around you at that moment, yet your whole world changes completely. Like it did for Buddh."
"That moment is the moment of enlightenment. The eye sees. The eye of the beholder is the key.”
She waited for him to say more, and did not resume the movie. It had been a long time since he had shared insights with her like this. She wanted to hear him speak again, explain things to her simply and insightfully, like he used to do so often.
“Hindi movie songs these days,” Rosh spoke up again, rewarding her patience, “are generally written by lyricists especially commissioned to write them. So when something written by people who lived centuries ago, gets used, there must be something very special about it.”
“But for a song to be immortalized, it has to be composed and sung exceptionally well too. This was the case with two songs in this film, Jai Jagdeesh Hare and Vande Maatram."
"For Hemant Kumar Mukhopadhyay, this film's music composer and male playback singer, making his debut in Hindi Cinema, their success proved pivotal.”
“Jay Jagdish Harey, the duet we just saw, was a brilliant overlapping rendition done at a time when song recordings were done on a single track, probably using a single mike."
"This song is not actually in Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay’s novel Anandamath, on which this whole film was based. Vande Mataram, the other famous track, however, was based on a patriotic poem that Bankim did write in his novel.”
“Vande Maataram became a legend straightaway – becoming a battle cry against the British rulers, soon after the novel was published. In fact, the book itself became a major source of inspiration for Indian freedom fighters in their struggle for independence.”
“The British banned this novel, and this ban remained in place for over half a century until India finally gained its independence in 1947.”
“Despite religion-based controversies plaguing the song for decades before freedom, Vande Matram achieved cult success. It is still widely considered as India’s national song.”
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