"Vande Mataram Sujala sufala malayaja-shitalaam Shashya-shyaamala mataram."<br /><br />These words that instil a sense of patriotism were penned by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee in 1875 as an ode to Mother India.<br />Vande Mataram was a part of his novel named Anandamath, a Bengali fiction that showed the Sanyasi army fighting the British soldiers, which was published in 1882.<br />On the death anniversary of Chatterjee, the Bengali writer, The Quint brings you all that you need to know about the origin of our national song.<br />Two years after Chatterjee’s death in 1896, Rabindranath Tagore recited the poem for the first time at the Indian National Congress’ annual convention in Kolkata.<br />But the version sung by Tagore is not what we hear today – over the decades leading vocalists like Omkarnath Thakur and Master Krishnarao recomposed the song using varying tunes, beats and instruments.<br /><br />Video: The Quint
