Gange Project
the Giver of Life. This thought came from the fact that a lot of youngsters who have bot been in the vicinity of Ganga have a pre conceived notion that Ganga is polluted and beyond repair. There are however many areas where the Ganga is still pristine clean and one can simply cup the water and take a sip without worrying about anything. In fact, they felt so refreshed during shoots having water straight out of the river. It tastes better than bottled water and it felt like it gave you instant energy.
There was also a thought to may be employing the ancient language Sanskrit to add an aesthetic touch to it. It also came from the thought that it is probable that the Most Revered Adi Shankara has written something about the Ganga and who better to describe the Ganga in all her glory than the great saint. They discovered that Adi Shankara had writted an octuplet called " Gangashtakam " describing the physical and subtle qualities of the river.
Part 2, it was decided will talk about how Ganga is important for the life and livelihood of at least 40 % of India ' population. So, it would talk about the various other facets of Ganga like how she is important for Agriculture, Economy, Tourism, Bio Diversity etc. It also goes on to say how in spite of all the abuse, Ganga keeps flowing in all glory supporting people by giving them the resources they need to sustain.
This is one of those sections where the Music had to be set keeping a lot of the visuals in mind. It just worked seamlessly.
Part 2 and Part 3 had lyrics in Hindi and these were penned by a very good friend Vayu.
Prasanth Techno has arranged the song beautifully based on what they wanted the feel to be. The first part was basically arranged to go with flow of the tune which was set in a way that people should be able to visualize how the Ganga flows when they listen to the Music. Part 2 was set to a predominantly Indianized arrangement and tune with a heavy classical influence. Part 3 was the core of the anthem and had to be powerful and give people a feeling of liberation!!
Though the basic track of the song was completed within a few days, the song kept evolving with new ideas over the next one year or so. The last part of the recording was the 20 piece strings session, recorded at AR Rahman ' s studio.
The mixing and mastering of the track was handled by Navneeth Balachanderan, a much sought after sound engineer. The quality of output speaks for itself.
They also got a ten piece choir with 5 male and 5 female singers to create an earthly harmonic feeling in the chorus. The chorus was arranged by reputed guitarist Vedanth Bharadwaj.
Quotes by famous people on the project:
AR Rahman wishing good luck on the project being adopted as the official anthem for the Movement.
Director Priyadarshan commented on the positive approach towards communicating an important social message
Director Gautam Menon commented on the beauty of the visuals
Multiple other people have passed on their good wishes. It is also really nice to see the response of the masses. They have got messages even from places like Bangladesh and Australia with kind words. The Anthem seems to have captured the imagination of young and old alike.
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