Audience enthralled with ‘Rangabati’ by Shankar Mahadevan in AAC grand opening ceremony

Bhubaneswar: Bollywood’s veteran playback singer Shankar Mahadevan stole audience’s heart with his powerful performance on the popular Odia folk song ‘Rangabati’ on the stage during spectacular opening ceremony of 22nd Asian Athletics Championships held at Kalinga Stadium in Odisha capital yesterday.

The stadium was enthralled and reverberated with music and popular songs by Mahadevan. It was a great gesture and pleasant moment for the singer by inviting Jitendriya Haripal and Krishna Patil, the original singers of Sambalpuri song Rangabati, to sing two lines of the song.

Entire team including music director Prabhudatt Patil and lyricist Mitrabhanu Gauntia of original version of Rangabati were present during the event. Mahadevan expressed his gratitude by touching their feet for such a beautiful folk song.

He entertained the huge crowd by performing his most popular song Breathless and he concluded with ‘Koi Kahe Kehta Rahe’, a popular Bollywood track from the movie Dil Chahta Hai that sees the entire cast take the stage, with the addition of 300 children from Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences, making it a 800-strong cast that raises the intensity levels to a crescendo at the packed stadium.

The mega sports event opened with March past, dazzling array of lights and sounds showing journey of Odisha’s glorious past and its promising future.