Mile sur mera tumhaaraa to sur bane hamaaraa

Posted by: Atul on: August 15, 2010

• In: National integration song | Patriotic song | Songs of 1980s (1981 to 1990) | Songs of 1988 | Yearwise breakup of songs
• 22 Comments

On 15 August, 1988, Indian TV audience were glued to their TVs to watch the telecast of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s address to the nation from Red Fort, Delhi. There was no question of people going for their remotes and watching any other TV programme for the simple reason that there was only one TV channel in India and that was the government owned Doordarshan. And TV remotes were not even an accessory with TVs sold in India those days.

PM’s address to the nation was over and as the audience were thinking of dispersing, people’s attention was suddenly grasped by an audio visual presentation that followed. It appeared like a filler between two programmes, but it was more than that. People watched and watched and watched, and six minute later, when it was over, people were left mesmerised.

The audience had just watched the inaugural telecast of “Mile Sur Mera Tumhaara”. In this, India’s unity in diversity was captured in such a manner than was never seen before.

The aim of this clip was to showcase India’s unity through diversity through music. The clip brings together Hindustani,Carnatic,Popular,folk and contemporary music, various regions, people of various backgrounds, important landmarks of the nation, and incorporates 14 Indian languages and creates a clip that is appealing both visually as well as aurally.

In this clip,Bhimsen Joshi, an eminent Hindustani classical vocalist sings in Hindi for the first one minute or so. Then the first line of the Hindi song viz. “Mile Sur Mera Tumhaaraa, to Sur bane hamara” (When my musical note and your musical note merge, it becomes our musical note) is sung in as many as 14 Indian languages. While the line is sung in different languages, celebrities and sometimes non celebrities from that region are shown in the clip and landmarks of that region are also shown.

Unity in diversity is stressed by using Raag Bhairavi, which is one complete Raag that includes all the 12 swars (7 shuddh and 5 komal) and this Raag is common to both Hindustani and Carnatic music.

Pt Bhimsen Joshi was the original composer of this song. After his work, jazz musician Louis Banks and composer P Vaidhyanathan arranged the music in various languages and took care of the translations with the help of musicians of those backgrounds. Finally, they wrote the final crescendo by incorporating the end of national anthem.

This clip was the brainchild of Rajiv Gandhi, the PM, who was also behind the earlier popular clip on the “Freedom Torch” video that was created earlier and which had top Indian sportsperson relaying the torch from one sportsman to another accompanied by music and the music ended up culminating in the tune of the national anthem.

Rajiv Gandhi, when shown the results of “Mile Sur mera tumhaara” was quite pleased with it and he overruled the objections of Doordarshan mandarins who were opposed to incorporation of a part of national anthem in the song which they deemed inappropriate. Thanks to the blessings of Rajiv Gandhi, the clip went through unaltered.

Cinematographer R K Rao visited various locations and shot the video in 20 locations, and that too in just 31 days. Ad agency Ogilvy and Mather, who were entrusted with the creation of this clip, had written to various celebrities and they had readily agreed to be part of this project.

Late Suresh Mallick of O & M, who was the incharge of this project, wanted the lyrics to be different from the usual patriotic songs. Various well known lyricists were approached to write the song, but Suresh Mallick rejected them all. He finally got a youngster in his team to do it, and that youngster’s lyrics- on 18th try, got the nod. Te lyricist was Piyush Pandey, now CEO of O & M.

Here is this song, on the occasion of 15th august, 2010, exactly 22 years to the date this song was first aired on TV. I have included the lyrics in its entirety, after getting the lyrics by searching it on internet. As mentioned, it has several languages and it is humanely not possible for one single person to know all these languages. Like a normal Indian, I am able to understand the lines in a few languages(about 4-5) passably well. Other readers of this blog may similarly be able to understand a few other languages. I request my readers to provide corrections to the lyrics wherever they notice errors. Similarly, I request readers to give information about the celebrities, places etc that are featured in this song. I was very much around at the time when this programme was first aired on TV and I could identify several celebrities, but quite a few of them, especially those from the south are unknown to me. So I request my readers to inform me those missing names and other details so that I may be able to update this post.

PS-Bhimsen Joshi, a giant in Hindustani classical music, was not a known figure among ordinary people. But this clip made him a household name in India. Even his “Paanwaala”, who did not know much about him, began to look at Panditji with new found respect. 😀

Acknowledgement-The details contained in this write up owe a lot to the article “The One Tune” by Suanshu Khurana that appeared on the supplement of “Indian Express” newspaper of 15 august 2010.

Song-Mile sur mera tumhaaraa (DD video) (1988) Singers-Bhimsen Joshi,M Balmuralikrishna, Lata, Lyrics-Piyush Pandey,MD-Bhimsen Joshi

Lyrics

[Language]Hindi] [Celebrity-Bhimsen Joshi]
Mile sur mera tumharaa, To sur bane hamaraa….
sur ki nadiyaan
har disha se bahke saagar mein milen
Baadalon ka roop leker
barse halke halke
Mile sur mera tumharaa.. to… sur bane
hamaara..
Mile sur mera tumhara…

[Language-Kashmiri][Location-Dal lake]
Chaain taraj tahin nyay taraj
ek but baniye saayen taraj

[Language]Punjabi]
Tera sur mile mere sur de naal
milke bane ek nawa surtaal

[Language-Hindi][Location-River Yamuna,Taj Mahal][Celebrity-Shabana Azmi]
Mile sur mera tumharaa….to sur bane hamaara..

[Language-Sindhi][Celebrity-Narendra Hirwani]
Mohnja sur tohi desa pyara mile jadein geet ashaanjo madhur tarano bane tadein

[Celebrities-Crew of TV serial Tamas-Deepa Sahi,Om Puri,Bheeshm Sahni,Deena Pathak]
[Language-Urdu]
Sur ka dariya bahte saagar me mile
[Language-Punjabi]
badlaan da roop leike barsan
haule haule

[Language-Tamil][Celebrities-M.Balmuralikrishna, Ramnathan Krishnan, Venkatraghwan,Revathi,Kamal Hassan]
Isaindhal namm iruvarin suramum namadhakum..
Dhisai veru aanalum
aazi ser aarugal Mugilai mazaiyai pozivadu pol isai …
Namm isssaiii….
Thik thakida thathikakida….thaka thimi thaka junu

[Language-Kannada] [Celebrity-Prakash Padukone]
Nanna dhwanige ninna dhwani-ya, seridante namma dhwaniya..

[Language-Telugu]
Naa swaramu nee swaramu sangammamai, mana swaram ga avatarinchey

[Language-Malayalam][Elephants]
ente swaravum ningalude svaravum, ottucernnu namote svaramay

[Language-Bangla][RiverHugli ,Kolkata Metro][Celebrities-Mrinal Sen,Arun Lal, P K Bannerji]
Tomaar shoor moder shoor srishti koroor koi ekshoor
Tomaar shoor moder shoor srishti koroor koi ekshoor

[language-Assamese]
Srishti karoon woi katha

[Language-Oriya]
Toma mora swarer milan srishti kare chalbochatano

[Language-Gujrati][Celebrity-Mallika Sarabhai]
male sur jo taro maro, bane aapno sur niralo

[Language-Marathi][Celebrity-Tanuja]
majhya tumchya julta tara madhur suranchya barasti dhara

[Language-Hindi][Celebrities-Waheeda Rehman,Hema Malini,Sharmila Tagore,Lata,Amitabh Bachchan, Jeetendra, Mithun Chakraborty,Diana Edulji,Om Agrawal]
Sur ki nadiya har disha se behke saagar mein mile…
Baadlon ka roop leke barse halke halke..
ho o…Mile sur mera tumhara
Mile Sur mera tumhara
to sur bane hamara
Mile Sur mera tumhara
to sur bane hamara
Mile Sur mera tumhara
to sur bane hamara
to sur bane hamara
to sur bane hamara
to sur bane hamara

Tags: 1988, Bhimsen Joshi, Lata, Luis Banks, Mile Sur Mera Tumhaara, P Balmuralikrishna, P vaidhyanathan R K Rao, Piyush Pandey