There are some writings which remain in the pages of books, and then there are some exceptional writings which come out of the pages and enter our lives. The song Vande Mataram is of that exceptional kind. When we look back to that song published in 1882 and written even earlier, many questions crowd our mind. What accounts for the fact that it holds its place in the national psyche so many years later? How did that song become a battle cry in the freedom struggle and a part of national life in the pre-independence period? What inspired poets to translate it into all major languages and music makers from Rabindranath Tagore to A.R. Rahman to set it to music? How was it recognized as the 'national song' after independence? Why has it been as much a subject of communal controversy today as it had been in the decades preceding independence?