The Vaccine War song Nasadiya Sukta fuses hard rock with mantra aesthetics

Director Vivek Agnihotri’s bio-science film ‘The Vaccine War’ has released a hard rock version of the Rigveda hymn ‘Nasadiya Sukta’. Combining the traditional sonic aesthetics of mantras and its complex intonations in Hindi, this rendition gives a hard rock touch to the Hymn of Creation, feeling extremely serious and yet calming and peaceful. ‘Nasadiya Sukta’ from ‘The Vaccine War’ features heavy and hard edged rock riffs combined with traditional folk music reminiscent of classical Carnatic style, complete with sitars, chanting and shreddy guitar solos. The production is booming loud with a very fine audio design, the bass is a bit subdued and the drums are simple though don’t have a loud enough impact on the snare or the cymbals. But that can very easily be ignored due to the power packed guitar riffs combined with the feeling of being inside a temple, as if priests are chanting the Sukta right in front of you. Vivek Agnihotri, taking to his X account (formerly Twitter) announced the song and wrote: “THE WAIT IS OVER: Launching Nasadiya Sukta from Rigveda that features in #TheVaccineWar #ATrueStory. Nasadiya Sukta is the world's first scientific theory on the creation of the universe. Pls share this and make the world aware about the scientific temperament of Hindu civilisation.” The song is accompanied by a music video showing clips from the movie regarding both vaccine preparation, media’s largely negative role, political controversies and the determination of the scientists to ‘Make In India’ something real and achievable. For the unversed, ‘Nasadiya Sukta’ is a hymn from the Rigveda and is the 129th sukta from the 10-th mandala of the text. In its Sanskrit passages, the whole sukta narrates the beginning of the world from a void born of nothingness before even existence. It proceeds to talk about the primal seeds that were sown by the One up above before darkness, light, mortality, immortality. The seeds eventually find their perfect soil bringing up strength and creating life, though this is not attributed to gods because the hymn narrates that even gods came after existence began, and all that was born will be returned to the void one day. In between, the music video cuts in the song as some very important moments are featured, such as the media criticism of the vaccine due to their political affiliations, a complete no-trust of the government, and having no belief in Indian quality. The two most important dialogues shown in the music video are from Nana Patekar, the first when he is talking to the scientists at the ICMR saying: “Today we have ICMR only because of the I (meaning that the Indian Council of Medical Research is only working because of its first initial which stands for ‘Indian’). The second one is when he addresses the media and says: “If this vaccine had a label which was from the West, you wouldn’t even question it.” ‘The Vaccine War’ will be released in theatres on September 28, 2023.

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The Vaccine War song Nasadiya Sukta fuses hard rock with mantra aesthetics

For the unversed, ‘Nasadiya Sukta’ is a hymn from the Rigveda and is the 129th sukta from the 10-th mandala of the text.

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