Vande Mataram..

Oh politicos..and their thirst for controversies circumventing the real issue..
This is the controversy they bring up on Vande mataram – our national song!
Do people even know what it means? And that its about our great land and our assets..
The words that united so many freedom fighters, the words dreaded by the brits- our aggressors. Come to think of it, the same words are causing so much unease to our ‘seculars’!! This whole controversy of singing and not singing etc..

Just imagine your own school days..how many times u joined any chorus (be it jana gana or some rhyme or slogan)? I remember our music class when the teacher wud be teaching some “brocheva..” or “tumehoo mathaa..” and we, a bunch of last benchers, wud have our compass perched on the desk resembling a mike, another guy with 2 pencils imagining them to be sticks and hitting the drums- circles drawn on the same desk – all singing some movie song while actually acting as though we were singing what the music teacher(RIP) was actually teaching. Who, from the govt or the school, is going around and check if u r really singing vande mataram..hey, whats all this fuss about?

It is and was a great patriotic song. A freedom cry used well by our freedom fighters and helped in creating the frenzy required for any revolution/movement and rightly the brits were frightened and so banned it.
And slowly it was relegated to national song and ‘jana gana’ was (s)elected as the anthem due to various reasons (lets ignore that for now, how ever much we are tempted to curse that act) I seriously think what wud have happened to it if ARRahman had not sung it?

So guys on the centenary of the great National song Vande Mataram – hum that as u remember it or just to remember it, hum it..
For your sake see the text and its translation (just the 2 stanzas)
Vande Mataram!
Sujalam, suphalam,
malayaja shitalam,
Shasyashyamalam,
Mataram!
Shubhrajyothsna
pulakitayaminim
Phullakusumita drumadala
shobinim
Suhasinim sumadhura
bhashinim,
Sukhadam varadam,
Mataram!

Sri Aurobindo Ghosh's English translation of the song
I bow to thee, Mother,
richly-watered, richly-fruited
cool with the winds of the
south,
dark with the crops of the
harvests,
The Mother!
Her nights rejoicing in the
glory of the moonlight
her lands clothed beautifully
with her trees in
flowering bloom
sweet of laughter, sweet of
speech
The Mother, giver of boons,
giver of bliss!