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A tale of two poet-laureates separated by centuries, continents, and languages

Bob Dylan was born in the USA in 1941, the same year in which Tagore died at the age of eighty. Their personas could not have been more different. There is no evidence to suggest that Dylan was familiar with Tagore or his works, although Dylan started as a folk artist and collaborated extensively with Purnadas—a pioneering Bengali folk artist. As is well known to Tagore buffs, he was very fond of folk music, and many of his songs had a folk origin.

I bring up this fantastic argument as a prologue to what I propose next that is even more outrageous. I submit parts of two songs to back my defense—Dylan’s Like a Rolling Stone and Tagore’s We ain’t got nothing, we sing from within and without. A lot has been lost in translation in my inept English interpretation of Tagore’s original.

Similar ethos predicates both the songs that celebrate the bliss of owning nothing. Both poet-laureates argue,” What can you lose when you got nothing?”

You may not be impressed with my construct, but do take a dekko and a listen.