Is the answer blowin' in the wind?

It all started with a heated debate among my senior Railway colleagues on the state of Indian Railways, my employer. Everyone had a take, some of them stupid, some downright insipid. Most had a prescription in which they had to do nothing. Why not? Even senior Railway officers use a term called “PTB” or “Powers that be”, when delivering an idle discourse.  I haven't learnt, even at the peril of confronting so many of them, directly and adroitly, as to who these PTBs were. But I have concluded that they actually don’t allude to anyone in particular, they allude to someone who ought to do something to set things right and it’s not them.

That sums up our problem. And is the answer blowin’ in the wind?

Since what I need to say today is rather brief, grant me indulgence to dabble a bit about Bob Dylan.

Dylan is a great but cryptic personality, to my mind, not a great singer but a wonderful lyricist, with shades of enigma. And in our youth, he held tremendous appeal for us.

I recall reading an article some years back from T.N.Ninan in The Business Standard titled “A song for our times”, asking us to throw up questions in the style of Dylan, the answers for which, so to say, were “blowin’ in the wind”.

And so, he asks, “how many crores must our Air India lose before a minister takes his head out of the sand?” Wrong question. My batch mate, Ashwini heads Air India, and he is one of the ablest. Let the question blow.

For that matter, “how many dreary programmes must the people not watch on state TV before they're forever banned?” Nobody watches them anyway, Mr. Ninan, so the question tends to infinity. Wasted.

And is a similar vein, “And how many years can other such white elephants exist before they're washed to the sea?”  Or, vey topical today, “how many public sector banks must give bad loans before they're allowed to be free?” Now you’re talking! Actually, considering that you talked some years ago, this is what we must grab from the wind and pronto.

But are there any answers blowin’ at all? The author says, "As Dylan knew, there are no answers. But it is important to ask the right questions". I don't know. As per Wiki, in June 1962, the song was published in Sing Out!, accompanied by Dylan's comments:

There ain’t too much I can say about this song except that the answer is blowing in the wind. It ain’t in no book or movie or TV show or discussion group. Man, it’s in the wind – and it’s blowing in the wind. Too many of these hip people are telling me where the answer is but oh I won’t believe that. I still say it’s in the wind and just like a restless piece of paper it’s got to come down some  ...But the only trouble is that no one picks up the answer when it comes down so not too many people get to see and know . . . and then it flies away. I still say that some of the biggest criminals are those that turn their heads away when they see wrong and know it’s wrong.

I am a fan of Bob Dylan. There was no internet those days. And if you did not follow the lyrics, the only option you had was to flatter and wheedle an angrezidaan dost, who could listen to the song and give you the full lyrics in 5 minutes. But how long could you keep toadying? So when I got hold of a book of lyrics of Dylan in 1970s, it was a prize possession.

I liked the simple ditties or country ballads that Dylan started with. I think this song catapulted him in the league of serious song writers and even made him a champion of many movements (as it suited you).......Black rights, peace and  "no to war', freedom and civil liberty and what not. All because the song is pretty cryptic and you could use it for just about any rebellion, with or without  cause.

Sample:

How many times must a man look up Before he can see the sky?
Yes, an' how many ears must one man have Before he can hear people cry?

And since the questions became so universal, there were no answers or rather the answers were deludingly ethereal.

Why, then ask such Dylanesque questions?

Perhaps start with some answers!!

Railway men, awake!!