FIFTY EIGHT YEARS AGO, THE GOD-BLESSED VOICE OF LATA MANGESHKAR MADE NEHRU AND INDIA CRY .....

Ali Peter John

I was twelve years old and knew very little about politics and less about why wars were fought between two countries. But ,it was the Indo-China war of 1962 that gave me some idea of what both politics and war were .It was my mother who made me aware of the ravages of a war and how soldiers were being killed and how even some of her own relatives had lost their lives in the war as they were soldiers fighting on the border. My mother who was not so educated was however very closely aware of what was going on in the country and she was a great admirer of Pandit Jawahwarlal Nehru the first Prime Minister of India, she did not know of any other leader and neither did she want to know.

She was very tense during the entire period the war lasted because her elder son and my brother had run away from home to join the Indian Navy and later had joined the Indian Air Force and had gone missing .To add to her misery, she was told that Nehru had lost the war .She went into what is now better known as depression.

I as a little boy saw her coming back to life in a better way when she heard Lata Mangeshkar (she only knew and listened to two voices on an old radio and they were Mohammed Rafi and Lata Mangeshkar).She told me about the song she had heard when I returned from school and she also told me that she couldn't understand most of the words in the song, but said she had cried because of the way Lata Mangeshkar had sung the song....

I heard the song," Ae mere watan ke logo "a few days later and I have not missed any opportunity to listen to that song during the last fifty eight years of my life. And every time I have heard it ,I have cried , hollered and bawled like a child....

It is a very strange coincidence...I was lying in bed today because of a severe dental problem and depending on my life on my mobile. I normally don't watch anything on Youtube and for quite some time I didn't even know that there was something like Youtube. I was growing sick with all the accusations and charges being exchanged and screamed about over the death of Sushant Singh Rajput and switched on to Youtube and was surprised and thrilled when I saw the "Devi" with a million miracles in her voice singing "Ae mere watan ke logo ".

I forgot all my misery and pain and stood up, something that just happened when I started listening to the" Devi "sing.Within a few seconds, I an Indian who will be a seventy year old Indian within a few days began crying like I had cried several times when I was a young man. What was that something so special about this song which made me behave like the way I did ? The "Devi "was singing in an open-air show some thirty years ago and I saw the crowd behaving just like I had behaved this morning.....

I have always felt blessed and honoured for knowing the" Devi" personally ,the woman in white who has been ruling the hearts and minds of people for more than sixty years. She may not be active now ,when she will be ninety -one years old in another three months,but she like I have always believed and said is one woman who God has blessed with immortality.....

Let me tell you something about the song.....the Indian army had received a setback in the war and its morale was very low. It was decided to have a public meeting and a show at the Ramlila Maidan in New Delhi the film industry was asked to come up with a song that could give a morale boost to the soldiers. There were many poets and lyricist who were ask to write a song for the occasion, but it was finally decided that Kavi Pradeep's song about how soldiers fight for their motherland to the last drop of their blood and even die as martyrs would be sung .

The poet had worked on the song for days till he was satisfied. C .Ramchandra the popular music director of the time was to score the music for the song. It was first decided that Asha Bhosle would sing the song at Ramlila Maidan. One of the reasons it is said could have been the fallout between Lata and C.Ramachandra over some personal issues.At one stage it was decided that both Lata and Asha would sing it as a duet but circumstances changed and C.Ramchandra and Lata patched up in the interests of giving the Nation and the soldiers a song that would stir their hearts and become memorable for every soldier.

On the day the song was to be sung, it was not Asha Bhosle who many felt would sing the song, but Lata. And once Lata started singing, there was pin- drop silence all over the Maidan and there were people standing up in homage as it were. And by the time Lata sang the seventh or eighth line, the great Pandit Nehru who was know in his eighties was seen shedding tears and there were thousands in the Maidan who shed tears with him. Pandit Nehru's crying made headlines in every newspaper the next day and is now remembered as one incident which brought the country together. The "Devi "must have sung thousands of songs in every major language can not be forgotten, but "Ae mere watan ke logo "will last as long as the watan (India,Bharat , Hindustan)lasts and lives.....

These are not very good times for the watan. The scare of Corona is still hovering over every head. A cyclone has luckily only threatened parts of the watan. And China is playing the same kind of dirty games like it played fifty eight years ago, though the damage has not been anywhere near what happened in 1962.

Twenty of our brave soldiers have lost their lives in the skirmish and our politicians who are not a patch on Nehru or any of the genuinely great politicians, are playing dirty games with the lives of our soldiers, I believe it will only be in the fitness of things to revive lines of "Ae mere watan ke logo ".Who knows they may wake up the conscience of our leader, some of whom are even taking the credit of doing what the brave soldiers have done. And I hope this song will wake up every soldier, big or small and make them know that they are the fragrance of the soil of the motherland.

This song must be played in every small or big place in the country where the spirit of patriotism and living and dying for the country is going down with every passing day. The song.....

Aaaa… aaaaa
aye mere vatan ke logon
tum khoob laga lo naara
ye shubh din hai ham sab ka
lahara lo tiranga pyaara
par mat bhoolo seema par
veeron ne hai praan ganvaaye
kuch yaad unhein bhi kar lo
jo laut ke ghar na aaye

aye mere vatan ke logon
zara aankh mein bhar lo paani
jo shaheed hue hain unki
zara yaad karo qurbaani

aye mere vatan ke logon
zara aankh mein bhar lo paani
Jo Shahid Hue Hein Unki
Zaraa Yaad Karo qurbaani

jab ghayal hua himaalay
khatre mein padi aazadi
jab tak thi saans lade vo
jab tak thi saans lade vo
phir apni laash bichha di
sangeen pe dhar kar maatha
so gaye amar balidaani

Jo Shahid Hue Hein Unki
Zaraa Yaad Karo qurbaani

desh mein thi diwali
vo khel rahe the holi
jab ham baithe the gharon mein
vo jhel rahe the goli
the dhanya javaan vo aapane
thi dhanya vo unaki javaani

Jo Shahid Hue Hein Unki
Zaraa Yaad Karo qurbaani

sikh koi jaat maraatha
koi gurakha koi madaraasi
sarahad pe maranevaala
har veer tha bhaaratavaasi
jo khoon gira parvat par
vo khoon tha hindustaani

Jo Shahid Hue Hein Unki
Zaraa Yaad Karo qurbaani

khoon se lath-path kaaya
phir bhi bandook uthaake
das-das ko ek ne maara
phir gir gaye hosh ganva ke
jab ant-samay aaya to
kah gaye ke ab marate hain
khush rahana desh ke pyaaron
ab ham to safar karate hain
khush rahana desh ke pyaaron
ab ham to safar karate hain
log the vo deewane
kya log the vo abhimaani
jo shaheed…

tum bhool na jaao unko
is liye kahi ye kahaani
jo shaheed…
jay hind jay hind ki sena
jay hind jay hind ki sena
jay hind, jay hind, jay hind

I have many and more reasons to thank you and be eternally grateful to you, dear Lata ji, but this is one song for which I cannot use my treasure of words and feelings to thank you because this is a song beyond gratitude and being thankful to you. We ,the people of Bharat will remember you for a thousand different reasons, but we and our generations to come will never have anyway of showing our gratitude to you, our most precious "Ratna "

(My special thanks to the "sangeet bhandaar ",Manohar Mohabbat Iyer)