Life in Balance: Amit Chaudhary’s Blog
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Gayatri Mantra in Battlestar Galactica

It is back.

Probably the best Sci-Fi TV serial on air, Battlestar Galactica is back, though Doctor Who and Heroes are strong contenders. The link is for Wikipedia as the original website on scifi does not display at all on firefox and linux showing only the ads and not the contents.

Which brings me to the Gayatri Mantra which is the theme song of Battlestar Galactica. For those who do not know about it, it comes from ancient Indian (Sanskrit) books called Upanishads. From Wikipedia

• In Devanagari:

ॐ भूर्भुवस्वः ।

तत् सवितुर्वरेण्यं ।

भर्गो देवस्य धीमहि ।

धियो यो नः प्रचोदयात् ॥

• In IAST

oṃ bhūr bhuvaḥ svaḥ

(a) tát savitúr váren_iyaṃ

(b) bhárgo devásya dhīmahi

(c) dhíyo yó naḥ pracodáyāt

• In English by Gayatri Pariwar

O God, Thou art the giver of life, the remover of pain and sorrow, the bestower of happiness; O Creator of the Universe, may we receive Thy supreme, sin destroying light; may Thou guide our intellect in the right direction

Here it is incase you have not watched it yet.

I prefer the version in Chants of India created by Ravi Shankar, George Harrison and team due to the normal tempo and classical indian background music, it is refreshing to hear Indian music during my normal TV viewing. If you prefer the Battlestar Galactica version it is available on the composer Richard Gibb’s website and for sale as a CD.

Chaiya Chaiya in Spike Lee’s Inside Man

The other Indian music in the mix has been Chaiya Chaiya song from the movie “Dil Se” with music from A.R. Rahman which was in Spike Lee’s movie Inside Man and in the first episode of the TV series, Smith. Link for lyrics and translation in English of Chaiya chaiya

Jaan Pehechaan Ho in Ghostworld

And then there was Jaan Pehechaan Ho in the fabulous movie, GhostWorld from an old Indian movie Gumnaam.

The lyrics translated roughly mean “If we come to know each other, life will be a little easier”
Here’s to more Indian music, it is getting to be a good mix.

Technorati Tags: Bollywood Indian Music Sanskrit

Update: Sepia mutiny has an article on something similar,Battlestar Galactica is desi friendly. They do have a point about ignorance in US TV serial,s the unit had the CIA department head ‘detecting’ the off shore call center employee and telling her that he knows she is in “Karachi, India” and the list goes on.

Update Feb 2007: Added YouTube videos