Obviously a Believer

Mike Marqusee

Author Mike Marqusee's love for Bob Dylan co-exists with his continuing fascination with Indian cricket.

Mike Marqusee's eyes light up when I tell him about my special interest in his work. "Passionate about both cricket and Bob Dylan?" he drawls, "there can't be that many of us around, can there!"

The occasion is the launch of an updated edition of Marqusee's book Chimes of Freedom: Bob Dylan in the Sixties in India, but I've just begun our brief one-on-one exchange by telling him how much I enjoyed his cricket books, especially War Minus the Shooting, about the 1996 World Cup on the Indian subcontinent.

Readers with vastly different interests can find something to catch their fancy in the remarkable range of titles on Marqusee's resume: three completely different types of cricket books, including the controversial Anyone But England and Slow Turn, a Novel; a highly acclaimed biography of Muhammad Ali, Redemption Song; and a political title, Defeat From the Jaws of Victory: Inside Kinnock's Labour Party.

However, the evening, at the Oxford Bookstore in New Delhi, is presided over by the spirit of Bob Dylan.

The book discussion itself is a little forced and wearisome at times "" as so many book discussions are "" and there's a little more pontificating than is strictly necessary on topics like American radicalism, the political Right and the political Left.

But Marqusee himself never strikes the wrong note. When he takes the floor, voice booming (he doesn't need a microphone and is proud of it; "one Mike is enough"), his enthusiasm for his subject spills out of every pore.

Chimes of Freedom places Dylan in the context of the political and social movements of the 1960s, arguing that the singer-songwriter's work can be best understood in light of the political struggles of the time.

Speaking in an authoritative tone that still manages to be pleasant and conversational, Marqusee holds forth on the complexity of Dylan's art, its continuing relevance today ("the targets he attacked are still with us") the misappropriation of his songs by people with their own agenda and the irony that he is still remembered as a protest singer despite having turned his back on the form 40 years ago.

He moved between topics as diverse as the unfortunate culture of "national boosterism" in modern India, analogous to the US in the 1960s ("you're getting obsessed with being greater than China, with being a nuclear power and so on"); the messiness and contradictions inherent in history, something that Dylan's works are reminders of; and how the singer-songwriter frustrated attempts to read meaning into his works (He once told Joan Baez, just to annoy her, that he wrote "Masters of War" only for the money) "" "but then, as D H Lawrence said, 'Don't trust the teller, trust the tale'."

He recites, practically sings, verses from Dylan's songs with passion, giving them inflections that highlight their meanings "" a far cry from many sanctimoniously dry readings that attempt to give Dylan literary "respectability" by dissociating his poetry from his music.

Which is why it's fitting that the evening ends, as it began, not with a barrage of high-sounding words but with a musical performance that captures the essence of the subject better than any discussion; a young Jawaharlal Nehru University student gently plays a Dylan number on his guitar.

"There's nothing more grotesque than watching middle-aged men talk about Dylan and the 1960s," quips Marqusee, "so bring on the young musician!"

I can't let Marqusee go without slipping in an underarm delivery so to speak, a cricket-related question. Back in 1996, he used George Orwell's pejorative description of sporting contests, "war minus the shooting", as the title of a book, applying it to India-Pakistan cricket.

Describing the acrimony surrounding the World Cup quarter-final between the two countries, Marqusee had lamented the lack of grace shown by the Bangalore crowds who booed Javed Miandad as he walked off the field for the last time in an international match.

In light of the recent, diplomatically successful series between the two countries, does he see any improvement? "I was at the Bangalore and Mohali Tests recently and was deeply moved to see Pakistani flags fluttering among the crowds," he says.

"There was an ocean of difference between Bangalore 1996 and Bangalore 2005 and it was visible in the behaviour of spectators from both sides." Things have changed, as his hero would say.