Songs that inspire, inform & entertain

Nagpur: Few can deny the emotional appeal of a patriotic song. It’s used in times of war and peace to infuse confidence in countrymen on national festivals to pledge commitment to the nation and in schools to inculcate love for the motherland among children.
These songs have been motivating young singer and composer Yamini Paighan since her childhood when she used to watch her father Jayant Upagade, a music teacher, organize patriotic songs for events in schools. “I used to hear children sing songs charged with patriotic fervour and would get very motivated,” says Yamini, the music composer of ‘Jallosh Swatantrayacha’, conceptualized to mark 75 years of India’s independence.
In co-ordination with theatre artist Prafull Mategaonkar, Yamini brought together singers, music arrangers and musicians of the city to present patriotic poems penned by writers and poets of Vidarbha. “We wanted to have a large number of people participating in this event and also wanted to compose some new patriotic songs using the writings of people like Krishna Keshav Upadhyaye, Anandrao Tekade among others,” says Yamini.
After the work began in August 2021, the duo decided to release two songs every month starting from December 2021 and the last two songs, including the finale with Vandematram, in January 2023.
The format uses singing, enacting and narration. “Each half an hour capsule begins with the title track of Jallosh Swatantrayacha, then there is a dramatized presentation of a true story from the times of the freedom struggle followed by information about and rendition of the song,” explains Mategaonkar.
So far ten songs have been released under the banner of Eteeshri Arts and presented by Deepali Ghonge. All songs are in Marathi language.
Put together at a budget of Rs 1.6 lakh, Jallosh Swantrayacha involves seventy-five of city’s popular music and theatre artists. “Besides Keshav Upadhayaye whose poetry ‘Baswe na ghari rani jaude’ was written in 1907, we have also used writings of post-independent poets from this region like Prasanna Shinde, Vinay Modak, Arun Kulkarni and a young 19-year-old poetess Bhargavi Babrekar. Three of the songs are written by Yamini,” informs Mategaonkar. The music arrangements have been done by Shailesh Dani, Pushkar Deshmukh, Anand Maste among others and the songs have been rendered by Shyam Deshpande, Gunwant Ghatwai, Datta Harkare, Surabhi Dhomne, Manjari Vaidya Iyer, Amar Kulkarni. None of the singers have charged any money for this initiative.
“Initially, the singers were singing on track but the output was of very inferior quality. We then recorded the songs in music studios. The dramatized segment was shot using chorma technique and then visuals were inserted,” explains Mategaonkar and adds, “A dramatized presentation of stories related to the freedom struggle brings out the emotions behind the songs and also provides information. This is the first time that music and theatre artists have come together on a project. Besides me, the other artists are Shekhar Aghar, Vinay Modak and Deeplaxmi Bhat who have played parts of freedom fighters,” he informs. The songs are uploaded on a dedicated YouTube channel and a link is posted on Facebook. “Viewers are growing organically after each song,” adds Mategaonkar.
Different genres like natya geet, powda, qwwaali, folk, storytelling and even ghazal have been used by Yamini in her compositions. Another feature of this initiative is the chorus that accompanies singers. “All of them are upcoming young singers while for another song ‘Adarshayache pujak amhi’, we have used elderly singers,” informs Yamini and adds, “Today’s youngsters do not connect with our freedom struggle. Patriotic songs help us to document and describe the history of our nation. Over the past seventy years we have been playing the same old songs on national festivals and most of them are from films. There was a need to create some new ones,” says Paighan who intends to compile all these songs and then hold competitions in schools later on.