A.R. Rahman And Ananya Birla Collab On India’s First Official Olympic Song

Team India gears up to take part in the Tokyo Olympics starting July 23rd, fans back home can now cheer them on with a first-of-its-kind, Indian Olympic song. The catchy and upbeat track titled ‘The Hindustani Way’ is composed by Academy Award winner and music maestro A R Rahman in collaboration with Indian singer Ananya Birla.

Speaking about the tune, Ananya Birla shared in an interview, “You know most countries have a song to cheer their team at the Olympics, but we didn’t have one this year. So I got this idea and spoke to the ministry, and then the first person who came into my mind was AR Sir. I had no idea what his reaction would be, but I took a chance, and he was very kind and nice about it. That’s how things started,”

The music video for the track chronicles India’s Olympic wins across the years with archival footage beginning from their 1996 stint in Atlanta. Clippings from the various training sessions of the athletes from this year have also been captured in the video.

A.R. Rahman was highly thrilled to be roped into the collab when Birla had approached him. “Everybody comes for an anthem, but I feel we can do a song, and it has to become an anthem by itself. We cannot call it an anthem, till it becomes one. So I was very nervous. Ananya is the new-gen artist – I have been hearing her songs, she produces her stuff with a lot of interesting productions and I like her voice a lot. So I took some time, worked on three to four ideas and then I sent her this one, which she really liked,” he shared.

The Tokyo Olympics is scheduled to take place from July 23rd keeping all COVID protocols in place for its athletes. The Indian Contingent will march strong with more than 100 of its athletes taking part in various sports from boxing, archery, hockey, and swimming (for the first time ever) among others.

Olympians, we wish you all the very best.

-Ankitha