SPOTLIGHT
RAHMAN’S HINDUSTANI WAY CAPTURES THE OLYMPIC SPIRIT
A R Rahman and Ananya Birla.
Oscar, BAFTA and Grammy-winning composer A R Rahman and multi-platinum singer-songwriter Ananya Birla have joined forces for Hindustani Way, a song to cheer on the over 100 athletes representing India at this year’s Olympic Games.
Hindustani Way encapsulates the Games’ go big or go home ethos with vibrant and rousing verses that shift between Hindi and English.
Heralding the end of what has been an immensely challenging year in India, the uplifting track embodies a spirit of unity and optimism as percussive production ramps up towards the engaging chant, “We are here to fight. If we fall, we get back up. We are born to win, we never stop.”
The official cheer song was produced by A R Rahman and was jointly written by Ananya, Bollywood composer Shishir Samant, and Nirmika Singh, editor of Rolling Stone India. Hindustani Way aims to carry the sentiment of Indian fans unable to attend the games who have high hopes for their star athletes, at the biggest sporting event in the world.
Reflecting on the inspiring anthem, Ananya said: “It’s been amazing to collaborate with my role model AR on this song which we hope does justice to the collective energy and support of all Indians cheering on our amazing athletes at this year’s Olympics. The grit and fortitude of our Olympic team in the face of such a difficult year is inspiring, We are here cheering the Hindustani Way!”
Speaking about his involvement in the project, Rahman said: “All of us are really excited to have made this special song and hope our athletes can feel the entire nation rooting for them, the Hindustani way, when they hear it. It was a pleasure working with Ananya on this project and we hope to convey all our support and best wishes to Team India through it! Jai Hind.”
The accompanying music video has sports aficionados counting down the days to the opening of the games, with archival Olympic footage from Atlanta (1996), Athens (2004), Beijing (2002, 2008), Rio (2016), London (2012) as well as exclusive training footage of this year’s contingent.
Ananya, who featured on the cover of Vogue India in June, is India’s first homegrown musician to go platinum singing in English. During the last year, the singer songwriter who is the first Indian to sign with Maverick Management (G-Eazy, The Weeknd, Miley Cyrus), released two tracks from her home studio in lockdown. Everybody’s Lost and Let There Be Love have both hit more than 10 million streams on YouTube and played out on US top 40 radio – making her the first Indian to do so.
Since dropping out of Oxford Uni to pursue music in 2016, at first performing at bars around London, she has hit over 350m combined streams, collaborated with artists from Afrojack to Sean Kingston, and performed alongside Coldplay and Wiz Khalifa.
Also an entrepreneur, Ananya set up Svatantra (which means freedom in Hindi) when she was 17 to provide financial solutions to underserved women in rural India. She now has over a million customers. She also has a mental health organisation in India, Mpower, which she set up after her own struggles. She is also an ambassador for NAMI the biggest mental health organization in the US. Through this work she was ranked one of GQ’s most influential Indians.
Last year she interviewed with a number of leading titles including Wonderland, Flaunt and Billboard and did live performances with MTV Asia and Ticketmaster.