Republic Day - 2010: Music - The road to national awareness??

The republic at 60! Jai Hind! were some of the familiar posts on facebook yesterday. All very patriotic and very good .I think we could do with a little more flag waving as a nation (if you compare celebrations to the 4th of July, we look like we are mourning) so flooding the online space with patriotic slogans is very welcome... to me at least. But do we, as a generation know enough about our country? Do we care? Is it important?

I suspect that we do care and believe that the same is important but we do not have the time required to dig the same out - atleast in th current form that the same is avaliable in. Some of us (the late 70s/ early 80s generation) who do know enough about the struggle for independence or about our leaders are probably quizzers or have paid a lot of attention to Class X History, even so the knowledge would be primarily pre 1947 as school texts (at least till the 1990s) did not contain anything beyond the midnight hour on 14th August and there is precious little information even otherwise. Those that are there like "India After Gandhi" and are scarily voluminous for most people.

This Republic Day saw two initiatives on Indian television (apart from the usual reruns of Gandhi), one was a rehash of "Mile Sur Mera Tumhara" - a medley involving music and movie stars and showcasing the diversity of India, the other was a great initiative by CNN IBN Republic at 60: Makers of India program where they profiled great Indians shortlisted by Ramachandra Guha (as good an authority as they come), the program was well made, compact and discussed the contributions of a select ten luminaries of our nation and how they contributed to take the republic forward over the last 60 years.
I do not know how many people saw the latter program though as my Facebook comments had more references to Mile Sur and how should have been better represented by Dada and others rather than Rituparna and Prosenjit . Mile Sur was obviously the far more popular watch - although the entire song lasted for 16 minutes.

Maybe the answer does lies in Music!?! Make a Mile Sur (or better still a Vande Mataram remix), only knock off Atul Kulkarni - put in an Ambedkar (put some subtitles), knock off Prosenjit - put in a Bose, knock off the Gujarati singer - put in Sardar Patel, knock off Gurdas Mann - put in Bhagat Singh. Our heroes and their contributions need to be celebrated. We would love to know who all the greats were who shaped the nation if the same is presented in a decently entertaining manner. We tend to be very parochial when we talk of our heroes (a Bose is highly revered in Bengal but a Patel or a V.P. Menon is hardly discussed in the same breath), we need to figure out a way and educate the country or at least (as views tend to be political) give them the information in a format that is engaging. Maybe there is a business opportunity in all of this, but that probably is just the tragic entrepreneur in me that is talking.
Talking of entrepreneurs saw one of our country's best Mr Kishore Biyani at R City, Ghatkopar, Big Bazaar Sabse Sasta Sale - Ritwika and me bought a lot of toileteries and stuff - unbelievable prices and a customers delight if only they could sort out the queues - that is obviously one problem Mr Biyani is still struggling with although he wac spending a lot of time looking at the queues and I am sure would make the experience better next time around.
On the food front, had lunch at the food court. My 3rd attempt at trying something good at the food court after trying Lucknow Kebabs, Moti Mahal and this time China House. Highly forgettabl I am afraid. My advice if you are at the R City Mall in Ghatkopar, go for the KFC for "finger licking good" chicken or to the Urban Tadka - probably the best VFM restaurant in Mumbai for Indian food. But more on those delights at a later date.

Jai Hind! India Rocks!!