Mile sur: The unofficial Indian anthem

Font Size

Print

Feedback

Email

Discuss

: How do you instill pride and patriotism in a diverse country like India without getting jingoistic and blasé? The national anthem penned by Rabindranath Tagore did it in 1911. And Mile Sur, in its humble way, did it in 1988.

Buoyed by the success of the ‘Freedom’ film, Doordarshan commissioned the late Suresh Mullick to do a magnum opus on the unity of India to be unfolded on August 15, 1988. And thus began a creative journey.

It was a stroke of genius of Mullick sa’ab (as he was affectionately and reverently known in the advertising world) to come up with the concept of fusion in India—bringing diverse music and stars together in a film that could be an anthem. The execution coup was to get music—Hindustani, Carnatic classical and popular, traditional and modern, 13 languages and regions into one piece that was harmonious to the ear and the eye.

Raga Bharavi, a sampoorna raga, was chosen as the base for the music. And getting the words right was a story in itself. After trying with some of the Hindi virtuosos, Mullick sa’ab briefed a young account manager to have a go at it—thinking that he could bring some innocence to the lyrics. At his eighteenth attempt, the young lad got it right and from this emerged the now famous line Mile sur mera tumhara. (The young account manager grew up to become today’s Piyush Pandey.)

To get the right fusion of music, Mullick sa’ab enlisted the help of two geniuses from two different streams—Louis Banks and the late P Vaidyanathan, a classically trained musician. Working together, they created the magical score—rendered by three doyens of music—Bhimsen Joshi, Balmurli Krishna and Lata Mangeshkar.

Getting the celebrity artistes to do their bit on screen was the output of some very detailed planning and assiduous hard work of the production teams—of Ogilvy films and the producer Kailash Surendranath’s unit. When the concept is inspiring and the cause noble, getting celebrities to co-operate and participate is not so difficult. Yet to align with over 30 busy people in 20 locations across

India within their own professional schedules and yet ensure a sense of uniformity, requires a ‘big picture’ visualisation and this was the genius of Mullick sa’ab, Kailash, his production team and the never say die spirit of Vicky Bangera, Ogilvy’s film man.

Every film has its ‘intentional yet accidental great shots’. Louis Bank’s hand on the keyboard is one such shot in this film. It so seamlessly breaks the string of stars at the moment of moving into a crescendo. Lata Mangeshkar donning the national flag as a dupatta was the nightingale’s own idea. And Bachchan, Mithun and Jeetendra in one shot was a casting coup.

Mile Sur was telecast for the first time during the Independence Day Prime Minister’s speech telecast from the ramparts of the Red Fort. It’s always a difficult task to better a great first film. But Mile Sur seemed to have done exactly that. I had just joined Ogilvy that year and I keep two memories of that film from my personal interactions with Mullick sa’ab. The formation of the flag by the children at the end is a subliminal cue to show that the spirit of unity would be carried forward by the next generation. And the presence of Mullick sa’ab’s family, the Ogilvy employees, in one of the last frames has a touch of Hitchcockiness to it.

Bhimsen Joshi told Piyush that while he has been known in the classical world, this film took him to the masses and he, humbly, thanked Mile Sur for it.

And even today when the film is played at a sales conference, the film is accompanied by cheers all the way. Every Indian audience is diverse and so there is always some person or group in the hall connecting with some celebrity and language on screen.

It is the unofficial anthem of India.