India rises up, sings Jana Gana Mana online

BANGALORE, INDIA: Fervent patriotism pervaded most other things on Tuesday, as the Indian online community rose to gave a virtual standing ovation to our National Anthem.

As Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar put it across on Twitter, "All Indians should be extremely proud today. The song that unites us all, our National Anthem, Jana Gana Mana, written & composed by Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore turns 100 today. Jai Hind! #respect." (sic)

To be precise, Jana Gana Mana had its first public performance at the Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress on the same day a century ago — in 1911. It, however, was adopted as the official Indian National Anthem by the Constituent Assembly nearly four decades later on January 24, 1950.

On its 100th anniversary, the song that still brings together the nation by its unifying spirit slowly made its way up to be one of the hottest Twitter trending topics of India. "Our national anthem "Jana-Gana-Mana" completed 100 years.It was first sung on 27 Dec 1911 :) Pls RT," (sic) internationally-acclaimed novelist Salman Rushdie retweeted.

In a way to summarize what the nation has traversed over this period, writer Pritish Nandy made a caustic remark, tweeting, "100 years later, Jana Gana Mana still evokes a terrific sense of pride in me. Wish I could feel as proud of the Govts we have had." (sic)

Later on Tuesday, 'National Anthem' also entered the top-10 list of Indian trending topics, as more people joined in expressing their views.

YouTube has about 2,007,235 views for the version put up by the Ministry of Culture, Youth Affairs and Sports till date. The video has the part-instrumental as well as the song version by A.R. Rahman, rendered by renowned musicians of the country, including Lata Mangeshkar, Hariprasad Chaurasia, Balamurali Krishna, Jagjit Singh, S.P. Balasubrahmanyam, Hariharan and Kavita Krishnamurthy.

It does pale in comparison with the latest rage, Why This Kolaveri Di?, which has more than 28 million views on the video-sharing website in a matter of weeks. But, one doesn't have to view videos of the National Anthem, when knowing it by heart.