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WATCH: Sachin, Sania, Bhupathi And Bhaichung Singing The National Anthem Will Give You Goosebumps

WATCH: Legends Of Indian Sports Singing The National Anthem Will Give You Goosebumps
Youtube/ Sports Heroes

The bell rings in a quaint school in a village and children come running out into the sunshine to play cricket with twigs for makeshift wickets.

The video, 'The Sport Heroes', directed by Abhijit Panse, evokes memories of playing in the dirt as children and how it shaped our adulthood. The video strives to put across a simple message -- in an age where video games and computers have replaced playing outdoors, children should learn to go back to their roots to learn about loss and victory.

The video also features the national anthem ahead of Republic Day being sung by legendary sportspersons.

Eight well known sport stars have come together for this collaboration -- cricketers Sachin Tendulkar and Sunil Gavaskar, tennis players Sania Mirza and Mahesh Bhupathi, hockey legend Dhanraj Pillay, football star Bhaichung Bhutia, Olympic medal winner and shooter Gagan Narang and wrestler Sushil Kumar.

They also sum up what the national anthem means to them as sportsmen in short video messages.

Tendulkar recounts how singing the national anthem in front of the packed Wankhede stadium before the 2011 World Cup was the ‘proudest feeling’ he has ever known in his life.

"But it (singing of national anthem) goes to a different level altogether, when you are playing against Pakistan in 2003 World Cup (in Centurion), standing inside the stadium, in the middle of the group, with 60,000 people singing 'Jana Gana Mana'," the right-handed former India batsman said.

“When you sing the 'Jana Gana Mana', your head is always held high, but when you sing it (standing) in the centre of the ground, then...seena chauda ho jata hai (chest swells with pride)," Tendulkar said.

"A couple of experiences, one was that (against Pakistan). The other one was when we played the 2011 World Cup finals, I can never forget that experience, the entire stadium singing 'Jana Gana Mana' and it still reverberates in my ears.

"It's the proudest feeling I have ever had in my life," the master blaster said.

"We achieve so many personal goals, also team milestones are achieved, but when its comes to our national anthem, everything else takes a backseat," he feels.

Cricketing star Sunil Gavaskar captures the myriad emotions he feels while singing the anthem, “It brings out a gamut of emotions, first there is the enormous pride that you feel when you sing the national anthem , there’s a feeling of joy, there’s a feeling of euphoria,a sense of oneness with everyone around you who are standing up and singing the national anthem, and a tinge of sadness at the sacrifice our forefathers have made that has got us this freedom. The overriding emotion is that of huge pride at being an Indian,” he says.

Wrestling star Sushil Kumar says he is rendered speechless when he holds the Indian flag at sporting events.

He feels it is his responsibility, as an Indian sportsman, to make sure that our anthem plays everywhere, repeatedly at international sporting events such as the Olympics, the Commonwealth and more.

Hockey legend Pillai recounts how happy and proud his team and he felt when the won the 1998 Asian games and the national anthem was playing.

On the topic of awareness among Indian youth in the field of sports, he feels Tendulkar is a huge inspiration. “Every parent wants their child to become like Sachin Tendulkar, like Saina Nehwal.”

Ace shooter Gagan Narang talks about how he feels about our national anthem.

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.