There were two golden voices heard before the start of the India-Pakistan match at the Eden Gardens on Saturday singing the national anthems of the two respective countries, but those two golden voices have since then been trapped in a mire of accusations of having botched up the songs, and thus having disrespected their countries.
For most fans, the sight and sound of Amitabh Bachchan and Fuzon’s Shafaqat Amanat Ali before the match was enough to raise feelings of patriotism, but as is usual in matters of taking pride in symbols of national identity these days, there have been complaints against both the renditions.
In the very beginning, there was a controversy about the Bollywood actor having charged Rs. 4 crores for singing the national anthem, but that rumour has since been put to rest. CAB President Sourav Ganguly himself cleared the air by saying that Big B had not charged any money at all.
Shafaqat Ali was victim to vilification in the social media as well, for having ‘forgotten’ the words to the Pakistani national anthem, the ‘Qaumi Tarana’. He reacted by saying that technical and audio glitches were to blame for some errors in the rendition, and brushed aside suggestions that he had forgotten the words.
Things have reached a new low on Monday, with an official police complaint having being lodged against Amitabh Bachchan in Delhi on four specific counts of wrongdoing – for singing the anthem for longer than it is supposed to take, singing in his ‘own rythem’, having used the word ‘Sindhu’ instead of Sindh and for having said ‘nayak’ instead of ‘dayak’.
The complaint was filed at Delhi's Ashok Nagar police station, with copies of the complaint sent to the Prime Minister of India and the Home Ministry of India. Here are the charges on which Bachchan stands guilty, according to the complainant:
Reports say that the complainant, Ulhas PR, has had a long-standing difference of views with Bachchan on how the national anthem should be sung. He had filed a similar complaint at Juhu police station alleging that the actor had incorrectly sung the national anthem during the Pro Kabbadi League.
It is hoped that people rise above the symbolic nature of anthems and other such tokens like slogans and realise the absurdity of a complaint registered on the basis of the time taken for it to be sung or specific words in it.
Some of the reactions to Shafaqat Ali’s rendition of the Pakistani national anthem and his response:
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