He is Here

Exactly a year ago,Kolkata celebrated Dylan’s birthday through a documentary made by city-based filmmaker Ranjan Palit on Shillong-based blues-folk musician Lou Majaw,“one of the biggest fans of Bob Dylan in India”. This Sunday afternoon,which also happens to be Dylan’s 68th birthday,the nation will get to know about Majaw’s passion for Dylan’s music thanks to the afternoon telecast of Palit’s Forever Young on NDTV 24X7. “Majaw’s passion for music and Dylan fascinated me. His story needed to be told which is why we made Forever Young,” says Palit. More so,feels Palit,because Majaw not only celebrates Dylan’s birthday with a concert every year in Shillong,but also in the way the Khasi man,who spent his early years as a musician at a Park Street restaurant,celebrates his community’s incredible zest for life,” says Palit. Using six years of Majaw’s life Palit introduces us to Majaw,and his Dylan-immersed life. Failed relationships,a bohemian lifestyle and an amazing struggle,which found Majaw as a “labourer” in Kolkata roads before being hailed as North-East India’s most important musician,the film has it all. And where does Dylan figure in all this? Let’s say he is omniscient. He stares at us from the posters splashed across Shillongs’ rainswept roads. His anarchist beliefs loom large over the film. “I’m glad that this film is being seen as a tribute to Dylan’s genius but am a little sad too that I had to edit it to fit it into a forty minute slot,” says Palit.

Time constraint,however,shouldn’t be an issue with Dylan fans who will be treated to an evening of Dylan’s music at the Someplace Else. Popular city-based band,Hip Pocket will perform vintage Dylan numbers as they do almost every year.

Dylan has inspired a number of experiments too. city intellectual Sujoy Prasad Chatterjee,has organised a number of events to celebrate the work of the maverick genius. This week,he organised a poetry reading session at the USIS where works of Dylan were read out along with that of Rabindranath Tagore.