B-town mourns Vajpayee’s death

Bollywood celebrities have expressed their heartfelt condolences over the demise of former Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Praising Vajpayee’s openness and his skills as an orator and poet, celebrities like Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, Rajinikanth, Priyanka Chopra, and Paresh Rawal, paid their tributes minutes after Vajpayee’s death was announced. Shah Rukh Khan took to his official Twitter handle and penned down a heartfelt message. SRK said he considered himself lucky to have got the opportunity to meet him and have had Vajpayee’s influence during his growing-up years.

“My father used to take me for every speech that Vajpayee made in Delhi when I was growing up. Years on, I had the opportunity to meet him and spend lots of time discussing poetry, films, politics and our ailing knees! I also had the privilege of enacting one of his poems for the screen. He was fondly addressed as Baapji at home. Today the country has lost a father figure and a great leader,” he wrote.

Life lessons

Reciting one of his poems, veteran actor Anupam Kher posted a video of himself thanking Vajpayee for his life lessons. “I’m saddened to hear the demise of a great statesman Shri Vajpayee ji. May his soul Rest In Peace,” wrote superstar Rajinikanth.

Actor and politician Paresh Rawal also took to Twitter and wrote, “He had no enemy in politics because he believed that in politics there are no enemies...only opposition! RIP- Atal Ji. Om Shanti.” “Former Prime Minister Shri #AtalBihariVajpayee’s visionary ideas and contributions for India were truly remarkable. The nation will always remember... #RIP. My thoughts and condolences to the family,” tweeted Priyanka Chopra. 

        —ANI

‘Musical soul for his poetry’

Bahut shauq se sun raha tha zamana,
Hamin so gaye dastaan kehte kehte…

While the nation mourns the demise of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, city-based music composer Kanwar Iqbal Singh and Patiala-based classical dance-choreographer Daizy Walia recall their tryst with Vajpayee’s ornate poetry exuding divine intoxication and patriotic fervour.

Daizy Walia  shares  that in 2001 her late husband  SK  Walia, then Director, NZCC, observed that there was a lot of substance in the anthology Meri Ikavan Kavitayein by Vajpayee and deserved more applause as well as attention. “We then met music director Kanwar Iqbal Singh and the project Bharat Kal, Aaj Aur Kal was born,” she says. 

On his part, Kanwar shares, “I really worked hard to compose and recompose parts of the poems. The recordings were done at Sur Sangam Studio. Classical vocalists from the region, late Ratnika Tewari and late Shamim Iqbal from Malerkotla, lent their melodious voices to the poems. In September 2001, we met Vajpayee ji. He listened to the 40-minute audio with rapt attention and congratulated us for our efforts. I was at cloud nine as he especially mentioned. ‘Sardar Saheb, you have done real justice by giving musical soul to my poetry and I shall be glad to watch your musical dance spectacle shortly’.”

— SD Sharma

‘An extremely rare human being’

A stalwart, a poet, a writer, an enlightened mind and a compassionate being leaves this world — that’s how megastar Amitabh Bachchan began his tribute to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, whose demise has left the nation mourning. Vajpayee died on Thursday at AIIMS Hospital in New Delhi, after weeks of being hospitalised. He was 93. “He was an admirer of my father and his work,s and there were many an occasion when I would be present at their meetings,” Amitabh, son of late poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan, wrote on his blog.

He said his father knew Vajpayee, who was then a student. Harivansh Rai, he says, was very impressed by Vajpayee’s oratory skills, which was his virtue.

“His oratory powers were unmatched and the usage of words exemplary. They were filled with the power of pronunciation. The rendition of the word was enough to give it meaning... One did not need to understand the language; that was his brilliance. Some of his public speeches and ones done in the Houses of Parliament are testimony. A poet, a writer, a politician, a Prime Minister... an extremely rare human,” Amitabh wrote. IANS