Instilling a sense of Pride ,Nationalism and Patriotism in a diverse country as India without getting jingoistic and biased is a huge challenge. In a multicultural and linguistic country as India its very hard to find find one tune that fits to all. Mile Sur, in its humble way, did it in 1988. Developed by the “Lok Seva Sanchar Parishad” and promoted jointly by “The Ministry of Information” & “Doordarshan”, back then Indian sole TV broadcaster. The song was written by Piyush Pandey, then an Account Manager and presently the Executive Chairman and Creative Head of Ogilvy and Mather, India. The song was composed by Ashok Patki and the conception of the project was by Suresh Mullick and recorded by a group of people from all walks of life, including popular Indian musicians, sports persons, movie stars, etc.
The idea was to come up with a concept which would bring the diverse music and stars together in a film that could be an anthem. It was supposed to bring 13 languages and regions into one piece that was harmonious to both the eye and ear. The magical score was achieved by teaming Louis Banks and the late P Vaidyanothan while Kailash Surendranath from Ogilvy Films somehow managed to shoot the video aligning 30 busy people across 20 different locations.
The success of the video however cannot be measured, its been ages since Doordarshan stopped showing it but a random search on Google or Youtube would show how immensly popular “Mile Sur” really was. Its success was followed by ad films such as “Baje Sargam” and the one which had popular sports persons across the country running with a torch. The recent ad films by DD have been pretty horrible to say the least but then they were not trying to recreate a legacy which Zoom has and I must say have failed miserably. It integrates nothing, is too long, got too many people from the same field and isnt very pleasing to listen either. What were Zoom trying to portray ? A Ganjee ad with Salman Khan in it. One of my favorite parts in the original “Mile Sur” was the one shot in the Calcutta Metro had Mrinal Sen, Sunil Gangopadhyay, P K Banerjee, Arun Lal walking out from the Metro onto a station. Bengal then was known for its intellectuals and showed in a small glimpse of itself writers, film makers, singers and sports persons. The new one portrays Prosenjit and Rituparna the so called “Hit Jodi” of a quite unwatchable “Tollywood”. Couldn't we have Amartya Sen instead !!! If it was singers one wanted then even “Ajoy Chakrovorty or Rashid Khan could have been portrayed.
Another very impacting image from the old video was the way the 3 superheros back then (Amitabh Bacchan, Mithun & Vinod Khanna) stood shoulder to shoulder for a particular frame. Getting the current crop of hero's together would I guess result in a nuclear fission putting both US and Russia's nuclear arms to shame. And as usual the north east has been left out again. Would it have been so hard to at least include Mary Kom (im sure none from Zoom even knows who she is). Instead we have a certain Shilpa Shetty. For what ? Getting kissed by Richard Gere or being racially abused at big Brother.
They dumped Cricket out but then what about Hockey, a nation integration video with out the national sport ??? (I have a Bollywood jingle for it) “It happens onlee in India”. Leslie Cladius you have another reason to be proud.
PS. - The original “Mile Sur” came out on DD the locally available broadcaster thus allowing the masses to view it, Zoom being a paid channel I guess wants to limit the crap to all those who choose to view, thank GOD for that.
