The times, they are a changed

Illustration/Uday Mohite

Disillusioned words like bullets bark/As human gods aim for their mark / Make everything from toy guns that spark / To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark/Easy to see without looking too far / That not much is really sacred

Bob Dylan
(It Ain't Me Babe)

I've always had an uneasy relationship with Bob Dylan. In Facebook terms, you'd say, it's complicated. I think, for me, the downside of the man's music is his voice, his singing voice. That nasal twang has annoyed me since I first heard him 40 years ago.

That tone, bursting like a wasp, through my middle ear, put me off at that crucial age of 17-18 that determines which way you head musically, and so Dylan, with an acoustic guitar and a harmonica, was not to be. Ferocious rock got my vote, not his brand of folk music.

But, as I got older, more aware of the world around me, the lyrics of the man's writing began to leave an indelible mark-it was poetry he was writing, set to music.

And then last week, it was announced, that the singer-songwriter had sold his 600-song catalogue to Universal Music, it was then that I sat back and thought to myself, "What a man, 600 recorded tracks in a 48-year career, 39 studio albums, plus the unpublished work, writing the lyrics, the melodies, the harmonica section." These weren't just love songs, or autobiographical outpourings. These were songs about protest and politics, diatribes about POWs and Vietnam, angry dissent against police brutality and racism, support for the poor, laments about power and powerlessness, rhetorical conversations with politicians about their broken promises, there was anger in his anthems, viciousness in his verses. And, he sought to sing of the society around him and ask all the questions that needed to be re-addressed about democracy.

And I thought about us, and where we're at, here in India. And, what if I commissioned Dylan to write an Indian 'protest' album, songs about our country? And, in my head I called him, this was the imaginary dialogue:

"Mr Dylan, sir. You're done with writing songs about USA, you've made $300 million on the sale. Can you now write us some protest songs about how we feel?"

He paused and then asked, "And what do you really feel about the nation you live in?" his nasal tone drilling through my middle ear.

"Frankly, helpless anger. I feel helpless anger as the walls collapse around us."

"So, help me here. Can you specify what the anger is about?" he queried.

"I feel pinned to the ground, my mouth is sealed, freedom of expression seems quelled, if it isn't totalitarianism on the one hand, it's the Twitter backlash on the other. The parrot-like quality, the herd instinct, of people. The hate politics, the sheer intolerance, as man hates fellow man with fresh intensity every day. Farmers have taken to the streets, we're fragmented, we've betrayed our women, as manhandling has morphed into molestation, culminating in manslaughter-the moral fibre has frayed irrevocably. I want you to raise hell, because we need to hear it, Mr Dylan!"

And Dylan asked, "How many songs do you think will suffice for all that you feel about your country?"

"Six hundred will just about cover it," I said, "Write me about 600 songs."

Rahul daCunha is an adman, theatre director/playwright, photographer and traveller. Reach him at rahul.dacunha@mid-day.com

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