Pradeep, who was as despondent as every other Indian after the 1962 war, was walking on Mahim beach in Mumbai when the words suddenly came to him.
He borrowed a pen from a pedestrian, ripped out the foil from his cigarette packet and penned the first stanza: “Ae Mere Watan Ke Logon/Aankhon Me Bhar Lo Paani/Jo Shaheed Huei Hai Unki/Zara Yaad Karo Kurbani”.
Some weeks later producer Mehboob Khan approached him for an opening song for a fund-raiser he was organising at the Nation Stadium.
Pradeep said he would do so but would not reveal any details. He then roped in Lata Mangeshkar and music director C. Ramchandra and the rest, as they say, is history.
The vivid imagery of the jawan resting his head on his bayonet as he offers his supreme sacrifice, the final refrain of “Jai Hind! Jai Hind ki sena!”, were all so evocative that Nehru asked to meet songwriter Kavi Pradeep when he visited Mumbai later.
Says Pradeep's daughter Mitul : “My father wrote the song in 1962 after the Indo-China war. The Indian film industry had decided to do a fundraiser for the army in Delhi, and filmmaker Mehboob Khan approached my father to write a song.
“Lata Mangeshkar sang it at the National Stadium in New Delhi on January 27, 1963, in the presence of the president and prime minister.”
Nehru asked to meet the writer but Kavi Pradeep had not been invited by the organizers.
“Two months later on March 21, the prime minister visited Mumbai and repeated his request. My father met him at Raj Bhavan and Nehru requested him to sing at a function at Robert Money School that evening. Kavi Pradeep did so and presented the handwritten lyrics to him,” says Mitul.
Says actor Manoj Kumar: “Mahakavi Pradeep has lamented the loss of our brave martyrs in this song. But he has also dealt a slap in the face of our citizens.
“He exhorts them to fill their eyes with tears because patriotism as a virtue does not come naturally to us.
“Did any family skip a meal in the honour of jawans during the Kargil conflict or when they were mutilated? Do mothers pray for their welfare? We take it for granted that they will protect us,” he says.
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