Each time the ticker on the Television, in my room, displays a fresh killing and each instant the bestial visuals flash my screen; it sends a shiver down my spine. I am helpless; I absorb myself in a book and the pile around me increases. Neither do I have the inherent courage to pick up a stone and shatter a dream or two into pieces nor do I see the virile benevolence in me to be able to bell the insulated regal Castle. I stand helpless, sluggard to least; meanwhile I pretend to have succumbed to another book. Between the jackets, I do. I finally slide into the darkness of my entombment but the exasperation comes from the fact that I am alive and the height is I still want to live. I confess fearing abandon. After I am completely submerged in the murky mausoleum waters, I feel lasting for breath. I call for the selfish space to suck some oxygen, I struggle. Finally my grunt becomes powerful enough to displace a book and some relief creeps through. The familiar Bob Dylan biography comes my way that gives me some air.

I had somehow missed going through it may be I thought it wasn’t novel to my cause. I lean and crouch while flipping through the pages and my eye catches the Neil young version of Blowin’ in the winds. The Lyrics empathize with me or maybe I identify with the sardonic feel. In a sense that I presume being Bob Dylan at decisive high on my vocals with pseudo- saccharine voice coming through:
How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
Yes, 'n' how many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, 'n' how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.
How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
Yes, 'n' how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, 'n' how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.
How many years can a mountain exist
Before it's washed to the sea?
Yes, 'n' how many years can some people exist
Before they're allowed to be free?
Yes, 'n' how many times can a man turn his head,
Pretending he just doesn't see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.
Bob Dylan rides high on my mind; I discover a split personality in me. Or maybe it was like this before as well? I was always affianced to resolve identity-woes while they collected the cast of my Goosebumps. Which I thought was worth nothing but let me tell you they embellished their rosy ambitions with it. Deep down in the slumber, I am not allowed to give up digging. At the ascent I start foraging for scraps of hope left-over on my white bed and finally I know who I am. I am ephemeral Bob Dylan with all the respected nicknames: Bobby, Zimmy, Zimbo, Zimmerman,
The voice of protect, the voice of Generation, the versifier or zany, why not? Or maybe my thinking cap is blown away by the wind and my grey matter stands exposed to the dubious drizzle. I am confirming my notions in his lyrics. Yes I am, I second with his confession: “My childhood is so far away . . . it's like I don't even remember being a child. I think it was someone else who was a child.” And his advice: “Things will have to change. And one of these things that will have to change is People. People will have to change their internal world.” How do I get out of this playful ridicule? I am bemused by the crevices, how do I resuscitate? If ever there is an answer it surely is blowin’ in the wind.

(Shakoor Rather is a student of Media Education Research Centre (MERC)
University Of Kashmir. Feedback at amanshakoor@gmail.com)

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