Mile Sur Mera Tumhara

Hindi (Pandit Bhimsenji and Lataji's parts, among others), and alphabetically the others were: Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Kashmiri, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu.[4] (Among the languages present, then in 1988, in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India).

• Singers and musicians: Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, Vidwaan Sri M Balamuralikrishna, Lata Mangeshkar, Kavita Krishnamurthy, Shubhangi Bose, Suchitra Mitra, R A Rama Mani, Ananda Shankar
• Poets: Nirendranath Chakravarty, Sunil Gangopadhyay, Javed Akhtar
• Actors: Amitabh Bacchan, Jeetendra, Mithun Chakraborty, Sharmila Tagore, Hema Malini, Tanuja, Kamal Haasan, Meenakshi Seshadri, Revathi, K.R. Vijaya, Waheeda Rehman, Shabana Azmi, Deepa Sahi, Om Puri, Bhisham Sahni, Amrish Puri, Dina Pathak, Harish Patel, Virendra Saxena, Suhasini, Uttam Mohanty, Pratap Pothen, Geetanjali
• Sportsmen: Prakash Padukone, Arun Lal, Ramanathan Krishnan, S Venkataraghavan, Chuni Goswami, P. K. Banerjee, Gurbux Singh, Narendra Hirwani,[5] Diana Eduljee, E.A.S. Prasanna
• Others: Dancer Mallika Sarabhai, cartoonist Mario Miranda, filmmaker Mrinal Sen

It is widely reported that the idea for the song was formed by Rajiv Gandhi and Jaideep Samarth, who was the brother of actresses Tanuja and Nutan and a senior executive at Ogilvy Bensom & Mather (OBM). Samarth approached Suresh Mullick with the proposal made by Doordarshan to create a film on the unity of India with a planned release date of 15 August 1988. Mullick had previously worked with Kailash Surendranath on the successful national integration film of 1985, Torch of Freedom (or Freedom Run), and thus chose him to produce the film. Mullick and Surendranath then approached Pandit Bhimsen Joshi who immediately agreed.[6] Mullick decided to fuse together Carnatic and Hindustani classical music with modern music for the same, choosing Raga Bhairavi as the base (as per Pandit Joshi's suggestion). The lyrics were written by a young Piyush Pandey and were approved after seventeen other drafts were rejected. Mullick chose Louis Banks and P Vaidyanathan to blend the music correctly and arrange the final score, which was sung by M Balamuralikrishna, Pandit Joshi and Lata Mangeshkar.[3]

Producer and director Kailash Surendranath filmed the opening sequence with Pandit Bhimsen Joshi at Pambar Falls in Kodaikanal, where Surendranath had previously filmed a famous ad for Liril soap (leading to the falls being known popularly as "Liril Falls"). With the help of an Air Marshal and an IAF helicopter, he shot the aerial view of the Taj Mahal. This led both Surendranath and the Air Marshal in to trouble. The video also features the Kolkata Metro and the Deccan Queen. Kamal Hassan's cameo was initially unplanned but he was included only because he accompanied M Balamuralikrishna for the shooting at the beach.[2] At the request of Doordarshan, many actors agreed to be a part of the film, with only Naseeruddin Shah declining. While Kavita Krishnamurthy had recorded most of the initial track for the actresses to lip sync, Lata Mangeshkar made time in her schedule at the last minute and recorded the song in the studio, wearing a sari with a pallu (transl. drape) in the colours of the Indian flag. The last shot of the film, featuring school children, was shot at Mullick's alma mater in Shimla.[6]

Twenty years after the tune's debut, it was re-recorded with an updated cast for telecast on 26 January 2010 by Zoom TV. This version, titled "Phir Mile Sur Mera Tumhara", features Indian musicians, singers, sportspersons and film personalities from the current generation. The current version's 16 min 17 sec length exceeds the older 6 min 9 sec version and was directed by Kailash Surendranath who had produced the original version as well. The new version retains music composer/arranger Louis Banks. It attracted criticism in a large part of the population among them were the Sindhi community which were upset over the deletion of the Sindhi lines "Muhinjo sur tuhinje saan pyara mile jadein, geet asaanjo madhur tarano bane tadein" present in the original.[7] Further criticism arose over the omission of notable personalities such as, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Sachin Tendulkar and Viswanathan Anand. It also failed to capture the soul and essence of the original version, focusing excessively on Bollywood actors, ignoring eminent personalities in other fields.[8][9]

The new version featured the following celebrities:

• Musicians: A. R. Rahman, Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy, Anoushka Shankar, Shivkumar Sharma, Rahul Sharma, Zakir Hussain, Bhupen Hazarika, Sivamani, L. Subramaniam, Amjad Ali Khan, Amaan Ali Khan, Ayaan Ali Khan, Louis Banks, Darshan Doshi,
• Singers: Shreya Ghoshal, Gurdas Maan, Shaan, Kavita Krishnamurthy, KJ Yesudas, Vijay Yesudas, Sonu Nigam, Karthik (singer), N. C. Karunya
• Actors: Amitabh Bachchan, Vikram, Suriya, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, Mahesh Babu, Juhi Chawla, Prosenjit Chatterjee, Rituparna Sengupta, Shilpa Shetty, Salman Khan, Deepika Padukone, Priyanka Chopra, Mammootty, Shobana, Sonali Kulkarni, Atul Kulkarni, Aamir Khan, Shahid Kapoor, Ranbir Kapoor, Shah Rukh Khan
• Sportspeople: Abhinav Bindra, Bhaichung Bhutia, Mary Kom, Vijender Singh, Sushil Kumar, Pullela Gopichand, Saina Nehwal
• Others: Sand artist Sudarshan Pattnaik, choreographer Shiamak Davar, film director Karan Johar

• Mile Sur Mera Tumhara on YouTube
• Phir Mile Sur Mera Tumhara on YouTube