Usha Uthup at the rehearsal for a video album on tsunami at choreographer Sukalyan Bhattacharya?s studio in Dhakuria on Friday. Picture by Aranya Sen

A guitar lies on the beach, caressed by the lapping waves. A familiar figure bends down to retrieve the instrument and walks into the horizon. A familiar voice recites: ...From the grief and tears and pain/ Will rise again/ A new world united in hope.

The figure is that of singer Usha Uthup, while the baritone belongs to Amitabh Bachchan. Big B is among the 84 artistes from across the country who have come on board an album in the aftermath of tsunami.

?This is, perhaps, the first time that the musical fraternity in India has come together on such a scale after a natural calamity,? said S.F. Karim, business manager, Saregama India, which has released the album entitled We Believe in Now.

The credits list is a virtual who?s who: Shaan, Sonu Nigam, Shreya Ghoshal, Udit Narayan, Alka Yagnik, Shankar Mahadevan, Kavita Krishnamurthy? from Bollywood, S.P. Balasubramaniam and Chitra heading the 10-singer list from the south, members of local bands like Cactus, Bhoomi, Chandrabindoo and Krosswindz and a host of singers including Nachiketa, Shilajit, Indrani Sen, Sriradha Bandyopadhyay and Rupankar from Bengal.

And why only singers? Actors Jeet, Indrani Halder, Koel Mullick, June and Sabyasachi Chakraborty have pitched in as well for the second phase of the venture ? video recordings of the songs. ?Every artiste, right from Mr Bachchan, readily agreed and without any remuneration,? said Usha Uthup, whose brainchild the project is.

Recalling the interaction with Bachchan in Mumbai, she says: ?He took less than a minute to say yes but getting his date was the problem.? The recording ultimately happened in October.

While the music (by Sobhan Mukherjee, Andy Park and Raja Deb) was recorded here, voices of the outstation singers were recorded in Mumbai and Chennai.

Recalls Hariharan, speaking from Mumbai: ?I enjoyed singing for the project. When a disaster of this magnitude occurs, it is everyone?s duty to do his bit in whichever way.?

The project has brought the actor out of Nachiketa. Other than his voice and pen, he has lent himself to the role of a singer who has lost his family to the killer wave in the video that accompanies one of the 10 songs in the album.

Its Tamil and Malayalam version has singers from the south facing the camera.

?We are trying to bring out a VCD as these days, songs have to seen as well as heard,? said Uthup. A shoot with the Bollywood singers is also on the cards, revealed Karim.

The album has songs in Hindi and English as well, with musicians Bikram Ghosh, Tanmoy Bose, Nondon Bagchi, Anjum Katyal and Jayshree Singh pitching in. ?Such a project has a national audience,? Uthup points out.

The singer had started penning the songs three days after disaster in 2005.

?A year may have passed, but the extent of damage is such that rehabilitation will go on forever. I hope to take the show to every tsunami-hit part of the country, from Port Blair to Vailankani,? she tuned off.