Today, the Penn State University acapella group Penn Masala released a new musical mashup of Gulzar with John Lennon.
The video was released one day after the New York City Beatles MeetUp Group and Beatles fans gathered around the Imagine mosaic in Strawberry Fields (Central Park) to celebrate the life and music of John Lennon who died on December 8, 1980, at the age of 40.
The mashup is particularly meaningful because the lyrics written by both Lennon and Gulzar continue to resonate with fans every day.
Gulzar wrote the lyrics for the song "Humko Man Ki Shakti Dena" ("Give us Strength of Mind") for the 1971 film Guddi and Vasant Desai wrote the music. The film starred the young Jaya Bhaduri as Kusum, a schoolgirl who has such a crush on the Bollywood film star Dharmendra that she refuses to marry anyone but him.
Jaya Bhaduri's portrayal of the spirited and carefree - but obsessed - fangirl earned the young starlet a Filmfare nomination for Best Actress. The comedy was also notable for cameos of film stars playing themselves - Pran, Rajesh Khanna, Vinod Khanna, Ashok Kumar, Dilip Kumar, Naveen Nischol, Mala Sinha, Biswajeet, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Om Prakash, Vimi, Shashikala, Shatrughan Sinha, Deven Verma, and Amitabh Bachchan, who married Jaya Bhaduri in 1973.
Presented in the opening scene of the film, "Humko Man Ki Shakti Dena" is offered as a prayer sung by students at the beginning of their school day. The song became so popular that several schools throughout India adopted it as the song to be sung during the school assembly – quite like the scene depicted in the film.
The lyrics to the song can be translated as:
God, please give us the strength of the mind
So that we can win victory over our minds.
So that we can become victorious over ourselves before winning over others.Remove the feelings of differences from our hearts.
Make us forgive when friends commit mistakes.
Keep us always away from falsehood.
And fill our hearts only with truth.
Make us win our own self before winning over others.Do us a favor when we are in trouble
so that we can tread the path of religion and perform our duties.
Help us have confidence in ourselves, and not fear evil
Make us win our own self before winning over others.
Penn Masala juxtaposes this simple song of prayer against John Lennon's Imagine, which challenges the limitations of religious and political thought.
Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people living for today
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people living life in peace, youYou may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will be as oneImagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people sharing all the world, youYou may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will be as one
Both songs share the same goal - to live in peace and harmony with others - though they envision slightly different inward-looking tactics to do so.
In 1968, the Beatles - John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr - visited India where they participated in an advanced Transcendental Meditation (TM) training session at the ashram of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Because or the popularity of the Beatles, the visit was highly publicized and, as a result, the visit helped change Western perceptions about Indian spirituality.
The following playlist features the Penn Masala mashup followed by the original songs "Humko Man Ki Shakti Dena" from Guddi and "Imagine" by John Lennon. Also included are videos of John Lennon and the Beatles singing "India India" and "The Happy Rishikesh Song" from their 1968 visit to India. Rishikesh was the location of the religious retreat center where they studied. The playlist concludes with a video of fans in New York celebrating John Lennon's legacy in Central Park yesterday, on the anniversary of his death.
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