Who composed Vande Mataram for AIR
naniwadekar
Milind Sabnis, a school teacher in Pune, has collected more
than 50 cassettes containing just one song : Vande Mataram.
Now in his early thirties, he has written a book, in Marathi,
about Vande Mataram. He was planning to publish it in Hindi
and English as well. I think the English edition has already
been published. When I met him, I was afraid he might want
to record the song in my voice as well. Thankfully, my fear
proved to be unfounded. I heard versions by Master Krishnarao,
Vinayakrao Patwardhan, Mogubai Kurdikar, Vishnupant Pagnis,
Geeta Dutt and many others.
Check : http://www.hvk.org/articles/0701/155.html
Sabnis recently organized an event in Pune where more than
5,000 students sang Vande Mataram. The secular liberals
in Pune had tried their best to make things difficult for him.
Despite all the research he has put into the song, he still does
not know who has composed it in Des for AIR. The tune is
played by AIR stations every morning. He heard the composer
could be either Ravi Shankar or Jnanbabu Ghosh. Unless my
memory is deceiving me, I had the query forwarded to Jnanbabu's
adopted son. He does not think Jnanbabu composed it. But then
who did? Can anybody contact Ravi Shankar and ask him?
- dn
doogar rajib
> Sabnis recently organized an event in Pune where more than
> 5,000 students sang Vande Mataram. The secular liberals
> in Pune had tried their best to make things difficult for him.
Any more than the Hindu neanderthals are making for Anand Patrwardhan?
cheers,
rajib
--
Rajib Doogar www.cba.uiuc.edu/doogar
Cricfan
<deleted>
>
> Despite all the research he has put into the song, he still does
> not know who has composed it in Des for AIR. The tune is
> played by AIR stations every morning. He heard the composer
> could be either Ravi Shankar or Jnanbabu Ghosh. Unless my
> memory is deceiving me, I had the query forwarded to Jnanbabu's
> adopted son. He does not think Jnanbabu composed it. But then
> who did? Can anybody contact Ravi Shankar and ask him?
>
> - dn
Incidentally, there's a site called http://www.vandemataram.com which
has a good deal of history behind at least 4 renditions including
Pandit Paluskar and Smt. Subbulakshmi. Unfortunately, there is no
record of the composer of the AIR tune.
Cheers
Arun
naniwadekar
doogar rajib <doo...@staff2.cso.uiuc.edu> wrote -
>
> > Sabnis recently organized an event in Pune where more than
> > 5,000 students sang Vande Mataram. The secular liberals
> > in Pune had tried their best to make things difficult for him.
>
> Any more than the Hindu neanderthals are making for Anand Patrwardhan?
>
I don't know the specifics of Patwardhan case but it is heartening
to note that you believe if one side does something, it is acceptable
for the other side to play the same game, and, by implication, that
you support the decision of Bajrang Dal to pay back commies,
Hindu liberals and Muslim neanderthals in their own currency
in Gujarat.
If you can take time off your study of Hindu neanderthals, I suggest
you follow the reaction of authorities in our neighbouring country,
whom one would expect to be civilised persons, to the Pakistani
tennis player who dared enter Men's Doubles at Wimbledon with
an Israeli player as his partner.
- dn
Excerpt from http://espn.go.com/tennis/wimbledon02/s/2002/0703/1402034.html
:
"
Instead of celebrating the success of Qureshi and Hadad, two fringe players
who befriended each other scuttling around the tour and got to the third
round at Wimbledon, the head of tennis in Pakistan denounced the pairing and
demanded an explanation from Qureshi.
Even though Qureshi went further in a Grand Slam event than any Pakistani
player in history, the Pakistan Sports Board is talking about suspending
him. Pakistan's officials are upset because the country doesn't recognize
the state of Israel.
"We hope and expect that he would not repeat this mistake in future,'' Syed
Dilawar Abbas, president of the Pakistan Tennis Federation, said in Karachi.
Abbas added that Qureshi had not obtained permission from his country's
federation to play with an Israeli.
"
naniwadekar
> "Ajay Nerurkar" <ajayne...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:3D2A56C1...@yahoo.com...
> > > Despite all the research he has put into the song, he still does
> > > not know who has composed it in Des for AIR. The tune is
> > > played by AIR stations every morning. He heard the composer
> > > could be either Ravi Shankar or Jnanbabu Ghosh. Unless my
> > > memory is deceiving me, I had the query forwarded to Jnanbabu's
> > > adopted son. He does not think Jnanbabu composed it. But then
> > > who did? Can anybody contact Ravi Shankar and ask him?
> >
> >
> >
> > Des dates back from 1876 (just a year after the song was written) and
> > composed by Jadunath Bhattacharya, Gopalchandra Dhar and Tagore's niece
> > Pratibha. Why don't you contact him and let us know if you find out
> > anything more?
> >
> > Ajay
> >
>
Briefly put, the Des tune composed in 1876 and the Des tune
composed in late 1940s for AIR are different.
Suresh Chandvankar and Milind Sabnis have been in close
touch with each other ever since Sabnis began his research
and my first guess was that Sabnis found Chandvankar's
information, which you have quoted above, to be wrong
or at least questionable, based on his research.
I haven't heard from Sabnis but I have exchanged several
emails with Chandvankar over the last two days. Not all three
names (mentioned in Ajay's post) were involved in composing
the original Des tune in 1876, but each played a part. I have
quoted a passage which talks about the contributions by
various persons to the original tune later in the post.
Chandvankar's email says : "It is true that the traditional Des
tune dates back to 1876 and this was sung in several Bengali
dramas of that time as a concluding song. Rabindranath cut
record in his own voice."
Tagore's rendition, released on a record, not in 1896
but sometime in the 20th century, is available with Sabnis.
Now I faintly recall hearing a scratchy version of it and it is
in Des. In fullness of time, I will get its copy for myself.
I picked up only a bad copy of Mogubai's supremely
confident and serene rendition, based in Khambavati.
The tune we have been hearing on AIR was probably
composed in late 1940s, again in Des. Some people say
the composer could be Ravi Shankar. He worked for AIR
that time and may not have been mentioned by name as its
composer as many records/tunes done by staff artistes in
that period don't carry individual credits. Let us hope we
can get feedback on this from Ravi Shankar himself.
A friend suggested the tune could be Pannalal Ghosh's.
I am trying to get Anil Biswas's opinion about this claim.
- dn
A document sent to me by Shri Chandvankar says :
"
Some interesting events before the song became popular nationwide -
- Vande Mataram song - written by Pujjyosri Bankim Chandra
Chattopadhyay in 1875. Now it is established that the date was 7th
November 1875. As per Hindu calendar
- Sj.Jadunath Bhattacharya was asked to set tune to this song just after it
was written. [He presumably composed the tune in Des or Des-malhar,
whatever the latter raag may have meant in 1876. - dn]
- Sj.Gopal Chandra Dhar of Hooghly District, Bengal sung it in Raga Desh
Malhar in 1876.
- The song was included in his novel 'Anandmath' by the composer and was
printed out in 1882.
- In 1885, Prativa Devi, niece of Rabindranath Tagore, made a swar lipi
(notation) of the song which was published in 'BALAK' magazine.
- Sung in National Congress in 1896, at Beadon Square, Calcutta by
Rabindranath Tagore and the song was declared to be recognized as the
National song. Piano accompaniment with the song was given by
Jyotindranath Tagore.
"
Rajan P. Parrikar
>A friend suggested the tune could be Pannalal Ghosh's.
To the pool of possible candidates must be added
the name of Vijay Raghav Rao as well.
r
Ajay Nerurkar
> The tune we have been hearing on AIR was probably
> composed in late 1940s, again in Des. Some people say
> the composer could be Ravi Shankar. He worked for AIR
> that time and may not have been mentioned by name as its
> composer as many records/tunes done by staff artistes in
> that period don't carry individual credits. Let us hope we
> can get feedback on this from Ravi Shankar himself.
Ravi Shankar is all but ruled out because his excruciatingly detailed
autobiography RaagMala has no mention of this. Here is a related extract
dealing with his tune for "saare jahaan se achchha" (original spellings
retained below):
My new melody was catchy and gave the song a brighter mood. Popularised
via the airwaves of All India Radio, it gradually became treated as a
national song, especially after independence. The main one was, of
course, our official anthem, 'Jana Gana Mana', written by Tagore. There
was already another important national song, 'Vande Mataram', but 'Sare
Jahan Se Accha' gradually became the second favourite. It was played
everywhere in its new arrangement and became extremely popular....
However, even in India many people do not seem to be aware that the tune
is mine. Over the years many different composers have been given the
credit for it. I do feel vexed about this issue! Recently I was shocked
to read on the inlay card of a cassette brought out by HMV (RPG) India,
featuring nationalistic songs by the legendary singer Lata Mangeshkar,
that the music credit for 'Sare Jahan Se Accha' was 'traditional'! In
India we never had a copyright system for authorship of tunes or musical
compositions in the past. This has only started recently, and it is not
yet properly organised. It's amazing how much money composers make in
the West in situations like this!
Ajay
Rajan P. Parrikar
>To the pool of possible candidates must be added
>the name of Vijay Raghav Rao as well.
He now lives somewhere on the East coast. He ought
to know who composed the AIR Des tune. See this:
http://www.themusicmagazine.com/vijayraghav.html
Warm regards,
r