Connective Tissue

Rabindranath Tagore

Ever since the days of cave paintings, humans have found ways to communicate that bypass the limits of tongue, tribe, and time.  “Globalization” is a recent term often applied to economics;  more broadly, it has actually been under way for thousands of years.  Accelerated by the industrial revolution, globalization was supercharged by the invention, in 1838, of a  universal language — photography.

Every day, pictures connect us in fresh ways.  Around this fast-shrinking planet, images often outpace words in the race for hearts and minds.

Century-old poems by Tagore, their meaning derived from the Upanishads — spiritual texts dating back thousands of years to before the dawn of writing and civilizations — were recently recorded in Menlo Park, CA, in the Bengali language.  Implemented by the noted young Silicon Valley entrepreneur and author, Sramana Mitra, and spoken by her beloved father, these most rare readings were accompanied on the internet by photographs, several by myself.

Nothing has ever given me a warmer of feeling of humility than the opportunity thus to be woven into the living tissue connecting us all across the eternity of time and space.

You can see and hear a collection of these recordings here. A sample:

.

Here is a website featuring Sramana’s English translations of some of the Tagore poems, also accompanied by my photographs.  A sample:

Sramana Mitra, photograph by William Carter

.

Slowly, my friend, slowly
Slowly
Lead me to your private retreat.
I do not know the way
There is no light
The inside and the out are both mired in darkness
I have taken your footsteps as my guide
amidst this deep forest maze.
Slowly, my friend, slowly
Slowly
Let us travel on the edges of this darkness
I will follow your course through the night
I will track the smell of your breath
Tonight, as the spring breeze blows
Slowly
Slowly
Slowly

Copyright statement: William Carter papers, © Stanford University Libraries. Click here for a detailed usage guide.