Song from Anand Math

Like in the earlier post, I am finding amazing stuff from You Tube.

I had got ~ 250 Amar Chitra Katha titles for my daughter. I read her a few pages from a title each night and we finish the book in ~ a week.

Currently we are reading "Anand Math" - an Amar Chitra Katha adaptation of the original novel by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyaya. (As an aside, Bankim Chandra was one of those Leonardo Di Vinchi kind of men who had mastery over a number of areas - at the time of his death in 1894, he was working on Puranic literature, and he retired as Deputy Magistrate in those British times)

As you would be aware - Anand Math is a novel set in British times. It is a story of a nationalist zamindar couple who get separated when attacked by bandits. Both husband and wife take the other to be dead and separately become a part of the revolutionary "Santans" who are fighting British.

Our national song "Vande Maatram" made its appearance in Anand Math.

Based on this novel, a movie called Anand Math was made in 1952. It was a super hit in those days and gave significant boost to careers of Pradeep and Hemant Kumar.

I searched on You Tube for Anand Math and came across two absolute jewels.

Vande Maatram is of course known by all, this video has Geeta Bali and actor Pradeep singing almost all the five stanzas (we are taught only the second).




The lady version is sung by Lata ji and is available below,



The other is a song I was overjoyed to hear since I heard it after maybe 25-30 years. I had heard it as a child when my father used to play his LP collection on Sundays. So it brought back many fond memories. This is Jai Jagdeesh Hare, sung by Hemant Kumar and Geeta Bali.