The opening page of the Gitabitan Archive

The Gitabitan is coming soon. On a DVD drive near you.

If this makes votaries of the hardcover text frown, here are reasons why it is likely to find takers among them as well. All 2,212 songs of Tagore published in Gitabitan appear alphabetically listed on the screen once Gitabitan Archive, the DVD, slides in. And there is much more than the lyrics in store.

?I have followed Visva-Bharati?s Akhanda Gitabitan,? explains Purnendu Bikash Sarkar, the man behind the mission. Every song has been linked up to recordings of as many renditions as Sarkar has been able to lay his hands on.

?We all have our favourite artistes. Someone might have a fascination for Purano shei diner katha, but sung by Hemanta Mukherjee. Someone else may fancy the song in Suchitra Mitra?s voice.? This allows in rare voices like Girija Devi, M.S. Subbulakshmi, Kanak Das, Krishna Chandra Dey and Kamala Das.

The search categories are many and varied, as well. A search by the first line is the commonest. ?One can just type a few letters and the search engine can grasp the word. For instance, on typing A,G and N, one is presented the songs with aguner or agni.? The other categories include porjay, sur/raag, taal and age of the poet when he composed the song. ?One can narrow down the search by specifying multiple attributes.?

Even as the song plays, its porjay, angik, age of the poet, the swarabitan where it appears, the swaralipikar, raag, taal, lyrics and swaralipi appear as footnotes. For 530 songs, the first recording and where Tagore composed it have been mentioned.

There are the 86 poems of Gitanjali that appear in Gitabitan, 433 Brahmasangeet, 251 bhanga gaan (40 of them with the original), four dance dramas, three gitinatyas and three plays.

?I cannot sing but I like reading Gitabitan. I used to type in whatever information I could gather on a song on my computer. Before long, I realised what I had compiled for personal satisfaction had become quite a wealth of material, which should be shared with others,? says Sarkar, an ophthalmologist based in Salt Lake. Thus, one gets to know that Tagore did not write a single song at the age of 59. Or that there are 97 songs in Gitabitan which appear twice with slight variations in the first line.

The bulk of the work was done in two years. ?I shunned the world and worked from 10 pm to 2 am after seeing my patients. I think I have bought all records in the market. Now that the software is ready, it is time to reach the listeners.?

?We are trying to copy-protect the DVD. Once the technicalities are worked out, it should reach the market in two-three months,? promises S.F. Karim, business manager, Saregama.