Our culture of music, art and literature can never make us forget, escape or overlook the treasures from the past which are ageless. Among many others, one iconic song that has held centre-stage after more than a century is ‘Ekla Chôlo Re’- words of a song which essentially mean that if no one responds to your call, then go your own way alone.
It is a Bengali patriotic song written by Rabindranath Tagore in 1905 but though the lyrics are in that language it has had universal appeal for the song exhorts the listener to continue their journey, despite abandonment or lack of support from others. As an inspirational ‘tagline’ it’s still widely used by motivational speakers, is often quoted in the context of socio-political change movements and was a favourite of the Mahatma !
The song has a fascinating history that’s now in the public domain and has been the subject of research of Gurudev’s immense body of work. We understand that originally titled as “EKLA”, this most uplifting song was first published in September 1905 issue of Bhandar magazine and was influenced by a popular Bengali Kirtan song. It was later incorporated in “Swadesh” (Homeland) section of Tagore’s lyrical anthology ‘Gitabitan’.
Like many of Gurudev’s legendary songs, ‘Ekla Cholo’ has had renditions not only from leading exponents of ‘Rabindra Sangeet’ like Suchitra Mitra and Hemanta Mukherji but also by greats like Kishore, who trained to sing in this genre. Bollywood too was not to be left behind in all this. In 2004, it’s tune was used with Hindi lyrics composed by A.R Rahman and sung by Sonu Nigam in ‘Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose: The Forgotten Hero’. In the celebrated ‘2012’ film ‘Vidya Balan’ starrer ‘Kahaani’, it is sung by yes, Amitabh Bachchan, under music direction of Vishal-Shekhar.
In a way, the theme seemed to have caught the fancy of our banking fraternity too in the 1970s era of huge bank branch expansion into remote unbanked interiors of the country. We then had the concept of ‘One-Man’ branches where the Branch Manager was ‘Ekla’ officer with another clerical and office staff and to go on a day’s leave he would have to find an officer willing to relieve him. Later, with computerization things got changed ! An example from business was the one-man show of the intrepid small manufacturers.
That said, ‘Ekla Cholo’ has a wonderful message not only in the socio-political context, but for those with entrepreneurial ambitions and of realizing their dreams in any field. It’s lonely at the top, they say. The song exhorts us, we cannot be weak even if alone ! ‘Ekla Cholo’ is in ‘Rabindra Sangeet’ genre but importantly, it talks of a fighting spirit ! Here is a modest effort on my part to try this iconic song…
Working on Living 