Along with wishing everyone a happy independence day I’d like to put forth an independence day play list of sorts. A collection of songs whose words and music have a strong patriotic spirit to it.
- National anthem: Featuring Pt. Hariprasad Chaurasia, Vikku Vinayakram, Ravikiran, Kumaresh & Ganesh, Pt. Vishwamohan Bhat, Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, Pt. Jasraj, this collective instrumental version was produced by AR Rahman for the album "Jana Gana Mana".
- Missing: Loosely based on the iconic “Vande Mataram”, this piece was composed and produced by AR Rahman for the album "Vande Mataram".
- Vande Mataram: Written by Mehboob and sung by the ‘crown princess of Indian playback music’ Lata Mangeshkar, this song was composed and produced by Ranjit Barot for the album "Vande Mataram 98". It combined the best of the modern and the yesteryears, a feat Ranjit Barot effortlessly manages to accomplish given his strong classical training and a background in rock music. The choir’s harmonic rendition of “Suchalaam sufalaam” that opens this song is unique and a spell binding effort.
- Maa Tujhe Salaam: Rendered, composed and produced by AR Rahman (Does anyone still remember Yak Bondy?) for the album "Vande Mataram", the words for this song were written by Mehboob. The brief given to him was to not write a song that the youth would like but never sing.
- Desh mere desh: Sung by Sukhwinder Singh & AR Rahman, composed and produced by AR Rahman for the movie "The legend of Bhagat Singh". The words of this song were written by Sameer.
- Yeh jo desh hai thera: sung, composed and produced by AR Rahman for the movie "Swades". Javed Akthar’s words bring a melancholic and fond feeling to friends living in foreign lands and to natives alike.
- Theme music from "Bombay": Composed and produced by AR Rahman for the movie "Bombay", this song is alleged to have taken 3 months to complete delaying the release of the movie. Based on the same raag as Mohandas Gandhi’s favourite song, this piece of music kicked off the trend of having instrumental compositions on mainstream film music albums, although AR Rahman has been doing it since his first movie “Thiruda thiruda”. “Bombay” is also the best selling casette tape of all times in India, if the accounting was transparent in the industry it would have rivalled MJ’s “Thriller” too in terms of copies sold.
- Azadi: Sung, composed and produced by AR Rahman for the movie "Bose, the forgotten hero", the words were written by Javed Akthar. This movie didn’t get quite the attention it deserved, it was a good effort and the music was top notch. This was one of AR Rahman’s lengthiest albums with a total of 19 tracks on the soundtrack CD.
- Thamizha thamizha: Sung by Hariharan, written by Vairamuthu, composed and produced by AR Rahman for the movie "Roja". (Bharat humko jaan say pyaara hai is the same tune in Hindi)
- Desk ki mitti: Words by Javed Akthar, sung by Sonu Nigam, composed and produced by AR Rahman for the movie "Bose, the forgotten hero".
- Sarfarosh ki tamanna: Written by Sameer, sung by Sonu Nigam & Hariharan, composed and produced by AR Rahman for the movie "The Legend of Bhagat Singh".
“Chak de” composed by Salim-Sulaiman due for the movie “Chak de India”, “Mera mulk mera desh” from the movie “Diljale” composed by Anu Malik are some honourable mentions.
This writer has a strong bias towards AR Rahman which would be evident looking at the songs in this play list. There have been timeless gems from the olden days, since my understanding and exposure to music from that period is limited I’ve restrained myself to only mention songs that came out after 1992.
Are there any other songs in the last 2 and 1/2 decades that should have been mentioned?
