A Song that Walked the World

Photo Courtesy: Matthew Harding

Garry Schyman’s Praan “says” things about Life, but specifically in musical terms. Any attempt to reproduce its musical statement in your own words is doomed to failure. You cannot isolate the truth contained in it; its truth and its beauty are two and yet, mysteriously, one.  As Palbasha Siddique's ethereal voice gathers power in Praan, you feel instinctively attuned to its melody which seems akin to watching a painting that is slowly changing in a constantly moving canvas of sound.   It produces emotions in your mind, but afterward most of them fade away. What remains?
To find the answer you have to know Matthew Harding.
At 23, Matthew Harding, a video game developer from Connecticut, USA moved to Brisbane, Australia, where it is common for people to  take off and travel around the world  a while before getting 'serious' in  life.  So in early 2003, he quit his job to go exploring Southeast Asia. He created a website to keep his family and friends updated about where he was.  A friend, using a Canon pocket camera with the capacity to record short video shot Harding doing his signature dance moves on the streets of Hanoi. His dance—an arm swinging, knee-pumping step, turned out to be a hit on the internet. So he kept doing it wherever he went. An online equivalent of a platinum hit, it has been watched by millions of people all over the world since then. He has turned up, grinning and bouncing, with Bushmen in New Guinea, Bollywood-style dancers in India, crowds of free spirits in Madrid, Montreal and Tokyo and even a stone-jawed military policeman in the Korean demilitarised zone.  Sometimes he dances alone. From tulip fields in the Netherlands to geysers in Iceland, he has danced in cities in more than a hundred countries. “I lost count,” says Harding via email. Once he showed up in the Nellis Airspace in Nevada, to perform in zero gravity.

Garry Schyman, the composer of Praan that transfixed millions all over the world. Photo Courtesy: Garry Schyman

In 2008, a marketing company approached him for making an official video of his dance.  Harding needed some original music. He approached Garry Schyman, the only composer he knew—who has written music for films, video games and TV shows including the A-Team and Magnum P.I.  Schyman says via email, “I almost said no because I did not understand the concept. Besides, I am an orchestra composer. I am not a song writer or a lyricist.” Harding   felt that the nature of the video lent itself to a non-English approach and Schyman thought that a Tagore poem would be perfect for the song.  “I found an English translation of Gitanjali and read through it, hoping one of the poems would fit the tone of the video. Stream of Life beautifully articulated the feeling I hoped to express,” says Harding.  In the mean time Schyman started doing what he does best. “I actually wrote the melody and chord changes before setting it to Tagore's poem,” says Schyman.
Now who could sing it?

From Bushmen in New Guinea to crowds of free spirits in Madrid and Tokyo, Matthew Harding has taken his dance to more than a hundred countries.

Harding's girlfriend, Melissa who was the co-producer of the video started searching for singers. None of them sounded right. She was looking for someone who sings in Bangla and is capable of bringing out the 'rock' and at the same time relate to the traditional music of the Indian subcontinent—someone who can bridge the two worlds.  She found a video clip of Palbasha Siddique, a Bangladeshi-American living in Minnesota. Schyman was not going to fly her to LA unless he was absolutely sure about her. He told her to send a demo. When they listened to it, everyone was blown away. She kind of ignored his melody and did her own improvisation over it. Now they had hit the jackpot—they got the song, the language and the singer. But Palbasha was only 17 at that time making her legally ineligible to sign a contract.   Her mother signed it on her behalf. “I would say it was more serendipity than lots of planning and research,” says Schyman.
The rest is history. This mystical song transfixed millions all over the world.
After Obama won the election in 2008, American political satirist Jon Stewart played the video in the background in one episode of the Daily Show. Meanwhile, it shot up to the top 10 of Amazon's soundtrack downloads and is also in the top 100 of all its MP3 downloads. At one point it was up over Madonna and Mariah Carey. The Head of organ department at Oberlin Music College called it “the best music he had ever heard.”
“I knew the poem in English, but had no idea how it would sound in Bangla,” says Harding.  “Palbasha did the work of fitting the poem to the music Garry had written and it came together perfectly in the recording.
I did very little to make Praan happen. I chose talented people to work with and then got out of their way.”
However you interpret Praan, there is something uplifting about the spectacle of all the different nationalities of almost every colour and shape, dancing away without any inhibition. Children are the first responders to Harding's infectious vibe — wherever he goes to dance there are a bunch of them laughing and trying to imitate his flailing steps.
Praan seeks to transport listeners to ecstatic peaks with driving rhythms and spiraling improvisations that Schyman orchestrated with a 25-piece band. The silken voice of Palbasha that carried Praan across the world has a perfect balance of freedom and fluidity. Palbasha says via email, “Garry did an amazing job creating this piece of music. The way he tuned it went perfectly with the Bengali language. There were many other people in the studio including Matt who were very helpful and advised me on things that could be done better. I still feel fortunate for this groundbreaking opportunity.”

Palbasha Siddique’s ethereal voice transports listeners to ecstatic peaks. Photo Courtesy: Palbasha Siddique

Born in Jessore, Palbasha Siddique along with her mother moved to Minnesota in 2001 as a fourth grader.  Her older brother was already attending university there. Back in Bangladesh, she was trained at Abbas Uddin Academy for a while and then BAFA in Dhanmondi. Her guru, Sujeyo Shyam Ghosh has been one of her greatest influences. In the US, she attended MacPhail Center for Music for about 7 years. “I trained in classical music, did some opera, and jazz. I also attended multiple musical workshops to try out different genre. In high school, I started getting into musical theatre and ended up winning multiple awards from the state for my performance,” says Siddique. At 11, she was invited to sing "God Bless America" during the seventh-inning stretch at a Minnesota Twins Major League Basketball game. “I've sung a fair number of Tagore songs, but that was not my specialty,” says Siddique.  “I think that actually helped me do the song the way that we did.” She has been doing songs with some Bangladeshi and Indian composers, which have been used in tele-films. Also a brilliant student, she expects to graduate in Psychology this December.
Praan may be a humble attempt to understand even a tiny portion of the mystery of Life's eternity and appreciate the marvelous structure of existence. It is the equivalent of the invisible sea into which, in a fine interweaving of melodies set by Garry Schyman and envisioned by Matt Harding, Palbasha Siddique ceaselessly pours herself, like the rising and falling trajectories of life. After it is long over, you cannot help feeling a little happier. And you want to find it in the heart of a friend.