Gangadhara Saastry has composed, sung and recorded all 700 shlokas of the Bhagavad Gita
.jpg "The Gita, set in music")
L. Gangadhara Saastry
Forty-seven-year old L. Gangadhara Saastry of Gudivada in Krishna district has became the first person in India to compose, sing, and record all 700 shlokas of the Gita. Till date, it was legendry playback signer and music composer Ghantasala Venkateswara Rao, of the same region, who had managed to record 106 shlokas in his own voice.
Saastry started the project when he was 39 and eight years later, he is finally ready to release Sampoorna Bhagavad Gita this month in Hyderabad. “It is first of its kind in the country. It took more than seven years, the hard work of 150 technicians, musicians, 30 musical instruments and lots of effort,” says Saastry.
Born and brought up in Koduru of A. Konduru in Krishna district, music runs in Saastry’s blood. “Once, when I was in America, a person asked me if I would only end up singing for myself or whether I would contribute anything to the world using the talent given by God. It was then that I decided to sing the complete Gita,” he says.
“My goal is to make it easily available for youngsters. One can visualise the scenes while listening to the audio and even the meanings of the shlokas are sung. One can even listen to it while going to work,” he adds.
“People should know the essence of Gita. It is not confined to any religion, it was born even before religions were born and it has the power to motivate people. Not to miss a single pronunciation, we re-recorded the Gita more than four times before finalising,” he adds.
The project, which had started with an estimation of Rs 18 lakh, finally cost Rs 2.5 crore. “Many people from across the world contributed. It took a lot of effort over these last seven years to get sponsors ,” he adds.
( Source : deccan chronicle )
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