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The road to freedom

Brazen up for `Vande Mataram,' which talks about the genesis of the freedom struggle and the national song.

Filmmaker K. Kalyana Chakravarthy, along with a group of film technicians, have formed a voluntary organisation `Lok Aawaz' to use the entertainment media as a motivating force in nation building. As a first step, the NGO is making a film on the genesis of the freedom struggle and the history behind the national song Vande Mataram. Dr. M. Balamuralikrishna composed and sang the title song after the formal launch of the film recently. "This is the 100th version of its composition since Rabindranath Tagore first set tune to Vande Mataram and sang it on September 7, 1906," says Kalyana Chakravarthy. Since then the song has been translated into many languages. "Bankim Chandra Chatterjee wrote the song in a mixture of Sanskrit and Bengali on November 7, 1875 when the British Government tried to force its national anthem `God save the Queen' on us. It was first sung by Rabindranath Tagore at the Indian National Congress convention held at Beadon Square, in 1896. In 1905, when Bengal was partitioned, the word Vande Mataram became a popular slogan overnight and spread throughout the country. It mobilised people from the nook and corner of the country towards one common cause - the freedom struggle. Bankim Chandra was a deputy collector in Bengal and had access to old papers and gazettes. He came across interesting news that the first mutiny for Indian Independence was led by sanyasis or gurujis from Ashram schools in Eastern and Northern parts of India between 1763 and 1780. As a youngster, he witnessed the 1857 mutiny. Based on these facts he wrote the famous novel Anandamath and incorporated Vande Mataram in his novel," says Chakravarthy.

Extensive research

As far as the movie version of the song is concerned, what inspired him was an article, "From Charaka to Chakra... Genesis of tricolour' published in The Hindu dated August 15, 1997. After extensive research on the subject for seven years, Chakravarthy wrote the script for his magnum opus. The film opens with India 2006 and goes back to the 1763 uprising by the saints. To my fortune, Balamuralikrishna not only agreed to compose music but also accepted to act as the guruji who led the movement. He will don many roles in the film from Manu to Vivekananda. The film to be made in 10 languages - Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Hindi, Bengali, Oriya, Marathi, Gujarati and English - features mostly newcomers." Budgeted at Rs. 10 crore, Vande Mataram's shoot commences in October and with extensive filming throughout the length and breadth of the country, it will hit the marquee in September, 2007.

M.L. NARASIMHAM

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