Hyderabad salutes Nobel Dylan

Half a century ago, Bob Dylan shocked the music world by plugging in an electric guitar and alienating folk purists. For decades he continued to confound expectations, selling millions of records with dense, enigmatic songwriting.

Now, Dylan, the poet laureate of the rock era, has been rewarded with the Nobel Prize redefining the boundaries of literature. Even before the icon accepted the Prize, the Gallery Café in Banjara Hills holded a tribute that was fueled with nostalgia.

It started off with Vijay Marur reciting Dylan's 'I don't believe you' and continued till select poems were read by Navanita Lahiri and BS Prakash. Quite a few of Dylan's hits were performed by city musicians that included Aishan Wali, Emmanuel, Hema Chandra and Salim David.

Songs performed include “Diamonds and rust”, “Times are changing”, “Blowing in the wind”, “Tangled up in Blue”, “Hurricane”, “Chimes of Freedom” and “Make you feel my love”

Expressing his delight, Marur said, “Each one of us goes through a phase in life when we can't verbalise thoughts, emotions or even reactions, political and otherwise.

Then you find somebody like Bob Dylan who seems to be doing it quite right and it strikes a chord. Then you grow old and forget it. But when you suddenly hear about a random thing like Dylan getting a Nobel, everything comes alive again.

“It’s easy for you to say "Diamonds and Rust" was a song by Joan Baez to Bob Dylan, but back in the day, when we had no internet, we didn't know this.

There was an album by the same name and we liked Joan Baez and we listened to it. But, now that the song has a background story of a relationship between these two legends, it’s amazing!” he said.