Shayan Italia’s ‘Jana Gana Mana’ : A rhythmic rendition

Hashtagged #IWillStandUpForThis, pianist Shayan Italia’s version of the national anthem has 47 million views... and counting

When Jana Gana Mana by Shayan Italia went live on YouTube on July 29, he wanted to do more than start a movement — he wanted to point out a symbolism of change.

The video instantly went viral and is continuing to make its way into people’s Youtube Trending timelines with its continuously climbing hits.

So what brought this project on? Years ago, when the Hyderabad-born visited India while he was studying and working in London, he went to the movies and when the audience was asked to stand for the national anthem, he wasn’t too happy with the sound quality of the piece originally written by Rabrindranath Tagore.

One of the biggest challenges was to make something that is inherently monotonous into a more enriched and polymorphic experience,” says Shayan. The resulting piece is a pleasure to the ears, dynamic in pitch but still our anthem, through and through. So when the standing for the anthem became a rule implemented by Supreme Court, Shayan wanted to revive the complete potential of this timeless musical piece in the way he knew how: by playing away on the piano.

“It was also hugely important to me to not have lyrics because I want the melody to be as vividly recollectable as other national anthems,” Shayan points out. Plus, he loves that the power of the piano used for this rendition is what steals the show. “I believe this is the first time a performance has been done of Jana Gana Mana on a string instrument, too, and the Steinway Model D is the world’s greatest piano. My mother had bought it for me before she passed away, so this whole project is in honour of her.” From the video, Shayan’s favourite shot is of the piano itself which is as visually stunning as it is acoustically.

Behind the scenes

Directed by Farhad Vijay Arora, the greyscale video is beautiful in its utter simplicity. Filmed in 8K, the team had to communicate with YouTube to allow for the 8K processing. “We wanted that clarity and crispness in sound and visuals,” explains Shayan, “so we worked with a lot of countries to make this accessible to viewers internationally because that was the goal with this video.”

Filmed in an empty room with just Shayan and a piano, the connection between instrument and player is worth witnessing. At the end of the video, viewers can see Shayan place an Indian flag on the piano and touch the fall board after he shuts it over the keys. It’s a touching moment which Shayan says wasn’t part of the performance, “I thought they’d stopped filming seconds before I did that, but they chose to include it in the final cut.”

One will also notice the comments are disabled for this video and upon asking Shayan why, he responds, “One thing I’ve always noticed is that when something political comes up, Indians don’t play well. I didn’t want an argument to crop up in the comments’ section which would distract from the music. And music shouldn’t be that way.”