The Bill Gates divorce and the articles which followed was like a personal loss to me. Unknowingly I had become a fan of his, reading his articles / talks / his book list. For a long time, my mind still could not accept it. I am 50+ so it is not that I am a teenager and infatuated with Justin Beiber. There are so many corporate scams which are written in India that now we have become thick skinned if we hear about ILFS (the latest one going around). There also these hushed departures when a person is asked to leave overnight and the stories start floating about inappropriate behavior, bribe etc.
Although I know that we are humans and are
allowed some distractions, but I always wonder why people at such senior levels
who have everything they need – money, fame, would cross the line knowing that they are hitting
the danger zone. Is it worth it? But corporate actions doesn’t interest me (I
think most of it is greed) as much as the creative folks mind and heart.
Inside my heart somewhere there was always a
hidden creative light which was shining like a sun till teenage and after the
whole engineering/medical melodrama of life landed me in the fringes of
creative world. So as a day job creativity took shape in videos, websites,
emailers campaigns & not the way my teenage heart had visualized but not
blank also – so a middle ground.
Hence, it’s fascinates me on how a person
writes books, songs, makes certain movies – what’s the inspiration / drive, how
they have grown. With the internet you can get drowned with opinions but there
are a few columns / journalists I read time to time. And some land up on at
your inbox – thanks to Netflix / Prime / Disney and not forget the Criterion
channel & now MUBI.
The Other place of discovery is Blossoms where
in that mountain of books you just may find a book which you never knew
existed. That is how I picked up Bob Dylan’s Chronicles: Part 1 (just for
record there are no other parts – it is like the last book of GOT, still being
written).
And when I did a search on Netflix, I found a
Dylan documentary Rolling Thunder Revue directed by non-other than Martin
Scorsese. With my playlists having most of the Dylan albums, it was easy to
envelope yourself with Dylan, I was listening to Oh! Mercy and reading about how
the album came into existence. I also Googled and read about New Orleans a melting
pop of jazz, folk and music – that is place a house was converted into studio
and Oh Mercy was recorded.
Bob Dylan’s book is like a blog in some sense,
he just rambles in a way that it almost feels like he is narrating you a story.
Imagine a big wooden house in heavy winter where the logs are being turned over
to spread some warmth and both of us are sipping some scotch. The language is
very different I think that is way he would have spoken in his early days and
maybe now as well. So it’s not an easy rad and type set also not the usual font
– this is a 2nd hand book which was printed in UK in 2005.
What stuck me – one was his sense of observation
& sense of detailing; it was like he was capturing the milieu of 50’s / 60’
& New Orleans so beautifully that I could visualize the whole scenario. A similar
feeling comes to you when you listen to Tambourine Man or Hard rain is falling.
I think that is what makes a great poet / writer. The words creates a whole new
world in front of you – This are the words of Kazuo Ishiguro for whom Bob Dylan’s
songs were an inspiration and why he got into writing.
I don’t want to judge Dylan or
any of the greats because they also toil through the lives like we all do and
what we wanted to do and we do sometimes are very different. Although his
inspiration Woodie Guthrie just did that all his life – sing folk songs, his
sings took a very different edge as he passed through his lifetime.
Looking at the documentary it did not feel any different what
so many Hollywood movies have visualised the late 60’s & 70’s hippie culture.
It was very different from what you saw in 1963 Newport Folk Festival (63/64) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pid0Ud4y3XY
/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeP4FFr88SQ
) – 2 of my favourite videos.
I still live with that image of Bob Dylan in my mind when I
go to sleep.
For informed reviews read:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/oct/16/highereducation.biography
https://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/05/books/so-you-thought-you-knew-dylan-hah.html
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