Monday, 28 October 2019
Sunday, 6 October 2019
Sanskrit voice to Mahatma’s favourite ‘Vaishnava Jana To’
The New Indian Express, Oct 2, 2019
Sanskrit voice to Mahatma’s favourite ‘Vaishnava Jana To’
Set for release on October 2, Assamese singer-composer
Ranjan Kumar Bezbaruah has retained the signature tune for Bapu’s favourite
Bhajan while adding his own style.
Published: 01st October 2019 03:34 PM
By Prasanta Mazumdar, Express News Service
GUWAHATI: The Mahatma would have been elated that Gujarati
poet-saint Narsinh Mehta’s verses would touch Benares and find a musical echo
in Assam.
In a fitting tribute to Mahatma Gandhi on his 150th birth
anniversary, his favourite bhajan “Vaishnava Jana To...”, earlier translated
into Sanskrit by a Varanasi-based budding scholar Alok Kumar and edited by
Jawaharlal Nehru University expert ND
Mishra, has been touchingly-sung by an Assamese singer-composer Ranjan Kumar
Bezbaruah.
The 15th-century poet-saint Mehta nor the Mahatma could have
imagined what depths and distance these humane verses would achieve. Bezbaruah
also lent his voice to songs of Rabindranath Tagore and Bhupen Hazarika after
he translated them into Sanskrit.
“Giving musical rendition to ‘Vaishnava Jana To’ in Sanskrit
was my concept. All India Radio, Ranchi will air it tomorrow (Wednesday) while
DD News will do so on October 5 at 7 pm. Zee News is also likely to air it,”
Bezbaruah told this newspaper. The music for the song was arranged by Pranjal Borah.
“This song was Gandhiji’s favourite. He could relate it to
his life and teachings. As it is his 150th birthday tomorrow, I thought if I
could come up with the Sanskrit version of the song, it will be a tribute paid
to him,” Bezbaruah said.
It’s been 20 years that he has been translating popular
Indian songs into Sanskrit and lending his voice to them. One of the songs that
he translated from Hindi into Sanskrit was “Sare Jahan se Accha”.
“I first translated the songs of Bhupen Hazarika into
Sanskrit and came out with the musical renditions. I have always wanted to
popularise the Sanskrit language as it is slowly getting obsolete. By
translating popular Indian songs into Sanskrit, I am trying to take them to the
new generation,” Bezbaruah said.
He said translating lyrics from any language into Sanskrit
might help the society in many ways. It can help the upcoming generation in
developing an acquaintance and interest with the rich Indian languages as well
as the country’s unparalleled literary and musical heritage.
A post-graduate in Sanskrit from the Gauhati University,
Bezbaruah is a Sanskrit teacher at Nagaon Government Girls’ Higher Senior
Secondary School in Assam.
The New Indian Express
Gandhiji's favorite bhajan 'Vaisnava Jana To' now in Sanskrit
The Hindu, Oct. 2. 2019
A Sanskrit teacher in Assam, Ranjan Kumar Bezbaruah, says he wants to pay homage to Gandhiji in a way no one in India has done before.
As a tribute from Assam to Mahatma Gandhi on his 150th birth anniversary on October 2, the first Sanskrit version of ‘Vaishnava Jana To’, his favourite devotional song penned by 15th century Gujarati poet Narsinh Mehta, will be released.
Ranjan Bezbaruah wanted to pay homage to Gandhiji in a way
no one in India has done before. So, as a translator of several Bhupen Hazarika
songs into Sanskrit, he conceptualised Gandhiji’s favourite bhajan in the ‘mother
of almost Indian languages’.
Mr. Bezbaruah teaches Sanskrit in a premier educational institution
in central Assam’s Nagaon and is a trained singer in Indian light classical
music.
Although he has translated and sung the Sanskrit version of
songs such as Muhammad Iqbal’s Saare jahaan se achchha, Mr. Bezbaruah relied on
two Sanskrit pandits for translating the bhajan.
“I needed help since the song was composed in Gujarati. Alok
Kumar of Varanasi translated the song and Narayan Dutt Mishra of Jawaharlal
Nehru University edited it. Pranjal Bora from Assam arranged the music,” he
told The Hindu on Tuesday.
Vaishnava Jana To in Sanskrit will be aired by State-run as
well as private radio and television channels on Wednesday, timed with
Gandhiji’s 150th birth anniversary.
Mr. Bezbaruah has been translating popular and patriotic
songs from Assamese, Bengali and Hindi into Sanskrit and singing them since
1999. He attributes his zeal to Vaartavali, a weekly Sanskrit programme on DDNews.
“Indian lyrics, especially of modern Indic languages, can
successfully be translated into Sanskrit and may also be presented as fresh
pieces of musical composition. Assamese lyrics, like other lyrical compositions
of Indo-Aryan languages, are loaded with the sound and resonance of Sanskrit,”
he said.
He has translated and sung the compositions of 15th Century
Assamese saint-poet-reformer Srimanta Sankardeva, besides the songs of
Hazarika, often called the Bard of Brahmaputra.
Mr. Bezbaruah has also collaborated with Sanskrit scholars
elsewhere in India to sing songs of legends from Nobel laureate Rabindranath
Tagore to A.R. Rahman.
“Translating lyrics from any language into Sanskrit might
help our society in many ways. It can help our upcoming generation in
developing an acquaintance and interest with the rich Indian languages as well
as our unparalleled literary and musical heritage,” he said.
https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/vaishnava-jana-to-gandhijis-favourite-song-now-in-sanskrit/article29571433.ece
youitube link:
https://youtu.be/1RVAViQs_p4
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)