When External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and his officers board the flight to Pakistan on Tuesday, their luggage will include four-CD audio sets titled 'Bollywood: 60 years of Romance'.
This special compilation of Hindi film songs will be gifted to Pakistani diplomats during Mukherjee's tour to promote one of India's strongest manifestations of soft power, Bollywood.
The Public Diplomacy Division of the Ministry of External Affairs has tied up with the RPG group's Saregama India Ltd (formerly The Gramophone Company of India Ltd) to bring out this special product as a gesture of diplomatic goodwill for a country in which Hindi film songs are all the rage.
This 60-song CD pack drawn from Saregama's vast archives covers songs from 1946 to 2006 and is not available in the domestic market. It will be given to various foreign ministry officials when Indian delegations visit a country.
The CD, which will have 1940s' film songs, will remind Pakistanis of undivided India and the undivided talent in the Bombay film industry. The first song is
Jab Dil Hi Toot Gaya by Kundan Lal Sehgal from the film
Shahjahan. The album signs off with the title track of
Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna by Sonu Nigam.
While gifting indigenous products of fame to foreign dignitaries has always