Blowing in the Wind
By Shamsad Mortuza
Blurb:
The title refers to a Bob Dylan song written at the height of the civil rights movement. Dylan poses a series of hypothetical questions related to war, peace, and freedom only to conclude that the answer is “blowin' in the wind.” Dylan later explains, “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.”
For the last three years, I have responded to the wind that is current for my op-ed column written for The Daily Star. Sometimes the wind is mild like a zephyr, at other times it is gusty like a gale. I raise issues that matter: education, malpractices, international affairs or popular culture. This column is my pleasant respite from my day job to find a platform to share my experience with my readers with a desire for a collective answer.
Bio:
Shamsad Mortuza is an academic administrator, educator, poet, translator, and columnist. He is Professor of English at the University of Dhaka who served as the Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB) from 2018- 2022. He attended the University of Arizona as a Fulbright scholar. He received his PhD in English from Birkbeck College, the University of London for his dissertation on The Figure of the Shaman in Contemporary British Poetry. In 2013 he went to UCLA as a senior Fulbright postdoctoral fellow. He has six books, and 30 articles and book chapters to his credit. He is the editor of Crossings: ULAB Journal of English Studies and Journal of Bangladesh National Museum. He writes a popular weekly column “Blowin’ in the Wind” for The Daily Star. He serves on the editorial board of the literary journal, Six Seasons Review.