When the Iconic "VW Beetles" was about to be re-launched recently,the hype created around it was enormous and VW were expected to surpass the nimbus of the vintage classic Beetles. But collapsing all the expectations, Beetles failed to stand up to its older cousin.
Same way, when RGV tried to bring back the glory of "Sholay", the bankruptcy he faced was unprecedented.
Now,why am I throwing these instances? Infact my pot was getting voided all these days without my thought feeds.So thought, why not get back with a thought on an anthem meant for national integration and its atrocious remake. Let me get in now. Here is a one-liner..
"Classics are never meant to be re-made. Leave it the way it is".
When ZOOM & TOI(page-3 cousins)were gurgling about the re-make of the iconic "Mile Sur Mera Tumhara" for past some days, I was very much skeptical around the hype, similar to their disastrous "Aman ki Ashes" campaign too. And as expected, TOI/Zoom turned out to be the "Balaatkaari purush". The new version seems to be raped and molested completely.
I still remember the song that had become as iconic as the National anthem in my kid-days.Aired on Doordarshan every Sunday morning during its golden era, iconic "Mile Sur Mera Tumhara was charming and simple .I had learnt the complete song by heard including each phrase of its entire 14 lingual lyrics. I used to even tell exactly which scene came with which “sur”.
And on Jan 26th, came the calamity. Felt like I had more gray hairs grown after I ceased watching the 16 minute long video.Now, what are the ingredients which has led to this havoc?
1. Almost all Bollywood stars - Feel sorry for the stars who couldn't make it to the list(Saifeena + Hrithik etc..) and to add, they can join Pakistani players in their campaign against "The Great snub".
2. Tolly+Kollywood stars without lip-sync - Sandalwood too snubbed!!:P (Karnataka Rakshana Vedike, where are you??? Time for some mayhem in "Namma Bengalooru":P )
3.Musicians- Rahman on his terrace,Sh-Eh-Loy in some desert, Sivamani in some jungle scaring the wild life, Air India's Amjad Ali Khan Khandan,Yesudas family, Bhupen Hazarika et al.
4. Shobana's jugalbandi with Shiamak- Had Shobana had li'l care for Indian classical dance, she wouldn't have performed an item number with Shiamak.
Now what arrested my vision?
- No big names in sports/science/business/Politics(!!). Reason - pricey to afford? Unavailable? or ignored?
- No big star shared the screen space. Come on, this aint any National integration. At least somebody had to perform together and share some space so that the duration could have been minimized.
- India is not after all about Bollywood/Movies. No sincere efforts were made to showcase our tradition/culture. It seemed, only the designer wear did the talking.
I feel, Doordharshan could do a revival of national integration theme by airing the classic song again and who knows, it could pull off some TRP's back in DD's favor. ha ha :P:P .
Now on an end note -
In our Engineering days, we had a contest for some fests named "Be-surdas" and as per the name ,we were literally invincible over there(:P).
Now if the older version of "Mile Sur.." was close to Surdas' "Sur", the molested version seems to topple us from the podium too.
