Bharat Bala – The producer and creative director behind patriotic albums, ‘Vande Mataram’ and ‘Jana Gana Mana’

Bharat Bala is a filmmaker based in Chennai, best known for releasing private albums. On the occasion of golden jubilee celebrations of Indian Independence he released the album Vande Mataram in 1997 which featured A. R. Rahman’s Maa Tujhe Salam (Vande Mataram) & Vande Mataram (revived version), which became immense popular. He also visualized and directed the music video Maa Tujhe Salam featuring Rahman. In year 2000, he released the album ‘Jana Gana Mana’ which was also popular. He directed one Tamil feature film, Maryan in 2013 which was an average grosser and also an award winning short film – Hari Om in 2004.

Bharat Bala was born in Chennai in 1963. He grew up in Chennai, where he started a production house after completing his studies. The house has been named as BharatBala Productions, and currently heads it. As a tribute to the glorious 50^th year of Indian independence he released the chartbuster album, Vande Mataram in 1997, with songs composed by A. R. Rahman. The album included a few more songs in Tamil and Hindi, also featuring artists like Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, which was the top independent musical album of the year. The album’s success earned him immense success and fame and he later released one more patriotic album Jana Gana Mana three years later. Now he is known as a film director, screenwriter and film producer in Tamil film industry.

Currently he is gearing up for his first Bollywood venture, Pyaar Bina Chain Kaha Re, starring Rajkummar Rao and Alia Bhatt. BharatBala Productions entered finals at New York Film Festival in 1998 for “Vande Mataram – Ma Tujhe Salaam”. The album won the 1997 Screen Videocon Award for Best Non-Film Album. His single short film, “Hari Om” received numerous accolades at different award functions including Audience Choice Award at Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles.

His film, Thaalam, showcased the boat races of Kerala, best known for the rhythm of the oarsmen. It was first among the films of his project, ‘Virtual Bharat’ which features 1000 short films based on Indian culture and people. The First Man, which revolves around an adivasi poet from Sambalpur was the second short film belonging to this project.

Bharat Bala – Some interesting and less-known facts

Vandemataram Album cover

1. His real name is Ganapathy Bharat.

2. His ever popular musical album Vande Mataram consisted of 9 musical tracks composed by A. R. Rahman, and also featured legendary Sufi singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan in the track “Gurus of Peace“. The artist passed away a few months after the super success of the album, one day after India celebrated its 50^th year of independence.

3. Music composer A. R. Rahman is his childhood friend.

4. Though known as a producer in the industry, his single film as a screenwriter and director Maryan starring Dhanush and Parvathy Thiruvothu was not produced by him.

5. Composer A. R. Rahman originally composed the top chartbuster song of the year 1998, Chayya Chayya for this patriotic album. As the song didn’t fit best into the album, he later used the tune for the movie Dil Se.

6. His present project – ‘Virtual Bharat’ is to shoot 1000 short films about the country, based on local tales, untold stories etc from different parts of the country. He focuses on untold stories, which he collected over the years while travelling across the country.