Do you know Matt Harding ?
Well, apparently you should.
Matt Harding is a big ‘star’ on Youtube, thanks to the spread of his viral videos, which shows him doing a short, weird, jiggly dance routine in various places around the globe – from Mumbai to Timbuktu. He has three of them so far with the latest being released just last month (you can find links at his website).
Anyhow, I did not know about this 15-minuter either till a few days ago when I read this New York Times article. I still wasn’t about to bother youtubing this, but what really caught my attention was this bit:
The music (by Gary Schyman, a friend of Mr. Harding’s, and set to a poem by Rabindranath Tagore, sung in Bengali by Palbasha Siddique, a 17-year-old native of Bangladesh now living in Minneapolis) is both catchy and haunting.
So of course I had to watch the video:
(You can also watch it in high quality here.)
The song is indeed catchy and haunting. However, the words a bit unclear and I couldn’t really place my fingers on the Tagore poem: help is appreciated from anyone with encyclopaedic knowledge of Tagore (I know someone who has this, but he is probably roaming around somewhere in the state of Indiana and I seriously doubt if he even knows how to open a Youtube video).
Apart from the song and dance routine, some people will really appreciate how this guy gave up a job to travel around the world. The list of places he has been is incredible to say the least.
(There is a bit more about this video at Sepia Mutiny, including the English translation of the poem, and a bit more about the singer)
Recurring Decimals..... 
Actually I watched the video about ten days ago.It was on utube homepage. Blew me away. Thought about doing a post then. Of course I didn’t realize the words are Bengali words, let alone Tagore’s. The video is so captivating it’s practically impossible to tell unless you turn off the monitor or somebody’s told you.
Sorry, can’t be of much help about the poem here.
Oh wait, I can. Look here. It’s now known the poem’s from Gitanjali. Though I must admit I don’t recall having read it.
Partho
July 11, 2008 at 9:50 am
Bongo:
Fluent though I am in Bengali, I couldn’t decipher a word of the song. I saw it on Sepia Mutiny where someone had posted the English translation. I still can’t place the poem. The video is pretty awesome. In fact I plan to post it on my blog also early next week.
Ruchira
July 12, 2008 at 12:15 am
Partho/Ruchira: Unless I had read the NYT article, I might not have detected the Bengali wordings either – it is sung in with quite a strong accent.
BongoP'o'ndit
July 13, 2008 at 8:48 am
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