The Man Whose Mid-Air Ode To India Went Viral

He sang AR Rahman’s "Maa Tujhe Salaam" while paragliding and won the internet's heart. Rupesh Maity speaks to Brut about his first viral video.

Transcript

00:00Hi Brute, this is Rupesh and this is my first viral video.

00:08I posted this video around February of 2020. It didn't really go viral. I mean,

00:15like all my friends circle shared it and people loved it. People loved the idea,

00:20the uniqueness of the idea and all people thought that this was something out of the box. But it

00:24didn't really go viral at that time. Around one and a half months later, some pages started

00:32sharing my video all of a sudden. And then eventually AR Rahman sir also got to know

00:40about this video and he shared my video on his Instagram page. That was the biggest moment of my

00:49entire paragliding journey. And it kind of slowed down over time. And then recently again,

00:56I don't know how, I mean, I think this virality, I mean, there are phases. So again, this time,

01:02you know, it receives like, I don't know, like four days it received 10 million views.

01:06So it's, it was, it's really great.

01:17So all these ideas about combining music with adventure sports, it started, it came to me when

01:24I, you know, went to Goa. There was a beautiful sunset and there were people who were kayaking,

01:30there were people who were parasailing and all these things. And I was always looking for

01:34something unique to do with music. I saw some people kayaking. So I thought maybe I'll go for

01:40the kayaking and I'll have a beautiful sunset, a natural, beautiful sunset. And the only sound

01:45we actually get is the sound of the waves and the sound of the wind in the ocean and my own,

01:54you know, voice singing. So that was the plan. I couldn't call it as adventure sports. Like I did

02:00kayaking once and I sang O Sanam by Lucky Ali while doing kayaking.

02:14I sang on the highest motorable highway of the world. That is in, that's in Leh Ladakh.

02:20That's in Ladakh, not Leh. So I sang while, you know, motorbiking in Ladakh.

02:31While skydiving, that's something on my bucket list. When Jeff Bezos went to space, I was like,

02:37okay, this is another thing that I can probably think about. I mean, I have to earn a lot of

02:42money for that, of course. But yeah, I want to sing in space. I hope that eventually space

02:48travel is more affordable and hopefully I can do something like that.

03:00you