Sometimes we run across artistic works so breathtaking that we wonder whether in all the preceding years we have actually lived. Sometimes we find übermenschen who leap cultural chasms in a single bound. These artists have an intrinsic Goodness which translates in all cultures: Márquez. Rushdie. And… Mehndi?
For your amusement, I offer Daler Mehndi’s ‘Tunak Tunak Tun’ in Flash (via Freedom Shock). There’s some charm in this badly-drawn boy (doesn’t Daler deserve a full beard?), but the original was even more craptastic. ‘East Indian,’ flying carpets and comments about bin Laden, check. Hello my crazy-eyed future girlfriend!
Here’s the white boy version, bhangra moves and all, by SUNY Buffalo. I think my family owned a buffalo by that name once. It sounds Punjabi.
Here’s a disturbing industrial version, proving that there’s nothing so saccharine that a German can’t make it depressing.
