PRADIP: POET OF INDEPENDENCE

                                               

Pandit Ramchandra Dwivedi, better known to the cine goers and literary people as Pradip (6.2.1915 – 11.12.1998 ), if alive, could have entered into his hundredth year in a couple of days hence. Let us admit that a singer of freedom like him, is never dead, rather will remain alive in our heart for good. He had the courage to compose and sing highly nationalist songs at a time in colonial India when very few had courage to raise any voice against the British rulers.

He chose Bombay (now Mumbai) as his centre and filmland as his platform to give a clarion call to the sleeping Indians to rise and throw out despicable colonial yoke from their shoulders. His first such inspiring song, ‘door hato ai duniyawalo Hindustan hamara hai’ in 1940 in the film Bandhan‘ hit the market like a lightning so much so that even today on the occasion of national celebrations, it is proudly played and heard. It suddenly made him popular all over the country and the English masters were so disturbed that they issued warrant of arrest against him. Panditji had to go underground to evade the imminent incarceration. He did not do so out of being cowardice but to continue his silent literary onslaught against the oppressive foreign rulers.

Then came series of sparkling and inspiring songs like ‘aao bachcho tumhe dikhayen jhanki Hindustan ki, is mitti se tilak kro ye mitti hai balidan ki’, ‘de di hamen aazadi bina khdg bina dhal, Sabarmati ke sant tune kar diya kamal’. For this, the obliged film world awarded him its highest  Dada Saheb Falke Award in 1997. The single song of  nationalism, which made him immortal is ‘ai mere vatan ke logon, jara aankh men bhar lo pani’, written in the wake of the Chinese aggression of 1962. When this song was sung in 1963 in Mumbai in a progrmme where Pt Nehru was also present, who was so overwhelmed that expressed, ‘One who is not moved hearing this song is not an Indian’. He himself wept profusely. Only a few days back in Mumbai, in presence of Narendra Modi, Lata was accompanied by one lakh people to sing this immortal composition to mark its 50^th celebration.

We all obliged Indians, from the core of our heart wish peace to this great soul.