New Delhi 14 April (IANS) The ‘Bridge of Music’ or ‘Sangeet Setu’, the charity show which brought the country together to fight the Covid-19 pandemic, broke viewership records across platforms, ranging from Doordarshan to online music sites.
Over 25 crore people watched it online and 23 crore netizens streamed it, resulting in 63 crore imprints on social media. The mega charity show has in fact brought back the memories of DD’s golden days along with the re-telecast of Ramayana and Mahabharata.
Every time the nation has gone into a war situation, our singers have shown the strength of unity to keep the nation’s morale high during the tough times.
Remember Lata Mangeshkar’s “Ae Mere Vatan Ke logon”?
Today when our country is bravely and strategically fighting a war against Covid-19, we saw a fantastic collaboration of the stalwarts of the Indian music industry to digitally connect the nation through music on April 10, 11 and 12.
Not just two or four, as many as 18 singers came forward for a three-day long series of virtual concert called ‘Sangeet Setu’.
The concert was blessed by a tweet by legendary singer Lata Mangeshkar. Prime Minister Narendra Modi also tweeted about it and said: “It would be a great treat to see this concert”.
Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar hosted the three-day long virtual music concert as six singers performed each day from their respective homes.
Legends like Asha Bhosle, S.P. Balasubraniam,Yesudas, senior playback artistes like Udit Narayan, Suresh Wadkar, Kumar Shanu, Alka Yagnik, Sudesh Bhosle, Kavita Krishnamurthy, Shankar Mahadevan, ghazal and bhajan maestros like Talat Aziz, Anup Jalota, Hariharan, Pankj Udhas, and new age singers like Salim Merchant, Sonu Nigam, Kailash Kher and Shaan performed with the best of their songs.
In fact, Sonu Nigam performed sitting in Dubai, while Yesudas performed from the US, and everyone showed solidarity to fight together and entertain the nation amid the lockdown.
Imagine, in a normal scenario when a concert happens, a lot of ‘taam-jham’ goes behind it. A lot of recordings, sound engineers working on them, studios, mixings, monitoring, mastering and so on. But here, though the production was as good as a mobile phone could manage, the ‘Setu’ connected millions of people.
But for what? The only request each artiste and Akshay Kumar repeatedly made was to donate to the PM-CARES Fund, which will help India in its fight against Covid-19 by keeping the country strong and equipped during this hour of crisis.
‘Sangeet Setu’s’ impact on the nation has been tremendous. It was aired on 300+ media channels and 40+ online/OTT platforms, including Doordarshan. This show, along with Ramayana and Mahabharata, brought back the memories of the golden Doordarshan days!
Over 25 crore people watched it across online platforms and 23 crore Netizens streamed it, resulting in about 63 crore imprints on social media. Not just in India, the concert was viewed by people in Australia, the US, Canada, the UK and many other countries.
Also, the Ministry of Culture recognised ‘Sangeet Setu’ as a national property and showed interest to extend it further. Collectively, these numbers are higher than people watching an India-Pakistan cricket match!
Two passionate industry professionals — Manish Bardia from Ahmedabad and Sukrit Singh from Delhi — envisaged this entire concert. They connected with their friend Kailash Kher, who further connected them with the Indian Singers’ Rights Association (ISRA), which initiated the show.
Manish Bardia, director of ‘Sangeet Setu’, said, “No studios, no sound recordists, no retakes, no monitoring, no mastering — yet every voice was touching millions of hearts! This was the beauty of ‘Sangeet Setu’. Production value matters least when emotional value is higher.”
On the other hand, Sukrit Singh, who was instrumental in broadcasting the show, said, “No artiste or OTT platform said no when we approached them. Rather, all were ready to contribute to the country. Our locations were different but the goal was one: To raise donations for the PM-CARES Fund.”
The show is still available on Amazon Prime. Do watch it with your family.
–IANS
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