Musician A R Rahman's association with the Commonwealth Games seems to be going badly out of tune. After facing flak for his theme song , which failed to go down well with the masses and politicians alike, another creation of his has been rejected by the six masters of Indian classical dance who were supposed to dance to it.
Pandit Birju Maharaj (Kathak), Saroja Vaidyanathan (Bharatnatyam), Raja Reddy (Kuchipudi), Sonal Mansingh (Odissi), Guru Singhajit (Manipuri) and Bharati Shivaji (Mohiniyattam) have rejected Rahman's Aao Balam song which was to form the introduction of the 11-minute sequence to be presented by 460 dancers on the opening day. "The song was just not going with the aesthetics of the Indian classical dance and the guru-shishya parampara that we are trying to showcase in this section," said Birju Maharaj.
The six masters held a meeting with the creative committee earlier this week to discuss the issue. The Core Creative Advisory Committee, comprising filmmaker Bharat Bala, Shyam Benegal, lyricist Javed Akhtar and kathak exponent Shovana Narayan, has accepted the decision and decided to make Vedic chants the introductory song.
Saroja Vaidyanathan said, "I did not like the Aao Balam song at all. It was just not going with the theme of six seasons through six dance forms that we are trying to showcase. The segment deals with student-teacher relationship which still exists in a beautiful way, and a song like Aao Balam was not even remotely going to showcase that."
Raja Reddy, who is handling the Kuchipudi segment, was also not happy with the song. His dance is going to be showcasing the Shiva Tandav. "The Veda recitation works for me and I am glad Bharat Bala and the rest of the members have agreed with us, otherwise it would have sacrificed a lot of dramatic sensibility," he said.
"Classical musicians and dancers are used to doing things in a particular way. They train and learn their art form in an extremely orthodox way and a particular strict system. So purist notions are bound to clash with that of some other people. I think it is a legitimate concern. But at the same time I would like to say that it is not a big deal as these issues come up when the actual practices begin. Improvisations like these are required from time to time," said Benegal.
Two more songs, this time for freeThere seems to be a contest on between various singers to come up with their own 'Games songs'. On Thursday, while Punjabi pop singer Daler Mehendi was singing at the Delhi Secretariat, Sports Minister M S Gill was unveiling another song for the Games, this time in the name of its mascot Shera.
"This song is beautiful. It will definitely sell. Sports, music and dance were part of the FIFA World Cup. The same and much more is what this song incorporates," the minister said in praise of the song.
Two weeks back, the Organising Committee had launched A R Rahman's theme song for the event. But the song was panned by several artistes and politicians for lack of energy and clarity of words. BJP leader Vijay Kumar Malhotra, who is also part of the executive board, criticised Rahman for charging a exorbitant Rs 5 crore for a dull song. A few days later, the government released a song sung by Euphoria band leader Palash Sen on the spirit of Delhi.
The new Shera song is sung by Shibani Kashyap and Vikramjit Sahney. It has Hindi, English and Punjabi lyrics. On the other hand, Daler Mehendi's song on Commonwealth Games is completely in Punjabi. The singers insist they have produced these songs free of cost. "I had very little time to make this song. If I had more time in hand I would have created a better song," Mehendi said.
