 "Beatles")
They believed they had got there. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr were searching for a cosmic consciousness that would unlock their full potential. The Beatles ruled the world at the time. “We’re more popular than Jesus,” Lennon had said, “Christianity will come to an end before rock music.” Their use of drugs seemed to them a creative dead end — the “terrible comedowns”, as McCartney later noted.
But at the peak of their fame, just after the iconic rock band had reimagined itself to produce the Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album and finished their Magical Mystery Tour, there was something calling The Beatles from “across the universe,” as Lennon later put it.
The ashram’s meditation hall
It certainly is another world. The road to the Chaurasi Kutia (84 huts) ashram in Rishikesh is really a series of thoroughfares without signboards. A caved-in road marks your arrival at the only gate that remains unwelcomingly open. An architectural enigma overlooking the Ganga, the ashram of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, or what’s left of it, is spread across 7.5 acres of forestland, an island unto itself. Its structural charms — cottages, yoga muts, satsang halls, meditation centres and a bungalow — are hidden behind a steep climb and lofty trees. In the cold spring of 1968, this is where the world’s most revered musicians came looking for an escape.
Prudence Farrow at the ashram, 48 years after her first visit in 1968
“We have all the money you could ever dream of. We have all the fame you could ever wish for. But it isn’t love. It isn’t health. It isn’t peace inside, is it?” Harrison told Paul Saltzman, a filmmaker who was a sound engineer back in ‘68. Saltzman happened to be at the ashram when The Beatles visited, and is the source of the most intimate pictures of the band in India.
The letter box John Lennon used to correspond with Yoko Ono
The Beatles first met Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in 1967 in London and decided to travel with him to Wales, where the dhoti-clad “guru” was to conduct a seminar on transcendental meditation, or TM. The yogi was at the helm of spreading TM as a way of unlocking the deeper reaches of the mind. The Beatles, all in their 20s at the time, were sold.
Artist Miles Toland painting a mural at the ashram
It was during this time that Brian Epstein, manager of the rock band, killed himself, and the shock consumed the rest. The spiritual guru promised The Beatles elevation of their consciousness without chemicals. (There are, however, contradictory accounts of the musicians’ substance abstinence at the ashram.)
Tourists at the entrance to the ashram
Lennon and Harrison arrived first, followed by McCartney and Starr, along with their wives and girlfriends, and the “valley of saints” was never the same again.
“Uttarakhand (then part of Uttar Pradesh) would only be in the news for animal sightings and natural calamities. The arrival of The Beatles introduced its core essence of Vedic culture to the world,” says Raju Gusain, a journalist in Dehradun who takes celebrity tours into the ashram.
Starr left after a week, but the rest stayed on for another six. This is widely acknowledged as the band’s most creative period. Starr wrote his first song (“Don’t Pass Me By”) here; Harrison wrote the iconic “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”; and Lennon and McCartney continued their creative revelry and profound rivalry. In all, the band composed over 40 tracks here — with only acoustic guitars and Harrison’s sitar at play. The remarkable two-disc White Album with 30 songs owes to this period, as do many singles and solo acts thereafter.
The menu at The Beatles Café
For Lennon, India was both the beginning and end of his two love stories. His wife, Cynthia, had hoped the retreat would rekindle their failing relationship but found Lennon more aloof, she later said. He secretly received telegrams from Yoko Ono, who later became his wife. “Look at the sky and when you see a cloud, think of me,” read one. The red letter box that still stands at the ashram bore witness to his dilemma.
At the ashram, along with the “Fab Four” were American actress Mia Farrow and her 20-year-old sister, Prudence, a model highly influenced by Mahesh Yogi’s teachings. The Beatles don’t remember seeing her around much. “She wouldn’t leave her yoga hut. We would knock on her door to ask her if she was alive,” McCartney recalled. “Dear Prudence,” wrote Lennon, “won’t you come out to play.” Prudence made a nostalgic visit to the ashram just three days ago, 48 years after her first visit that made her give up modelling. She has been teaching TM ever since.
The Beatles beat a bitter retreat from the ashram, after they reportedly heard that the yogi had made sexual advances towards one of the women. Lennon’s parting gift was the satirical “Sexy Sadie”. But, after Lennon’s death in 1980, Harrison, McCartney and Ringo have said that it had been a mistake to disrespect Mahesh Yogi. McCartney and Ringo continue to be associated with the Maharishi Foundation. They also performed at a concert in 2009 to raise money for TM.
“At an exhibition next month at the ashram to mark 50 years of The Beatles’ India visit, along with archival pictures and memorabilia, we will also show interviews of The Beatles conceding that the allegations against Maharishi were baseless,” says Anand Shrivastava, Mahesh Yogi’s nephew. The Beatles Story, a museum in their hometown, Liverpool, will commemorate 50 years of the band’s India visit this February with never-before-seen images and personal accounts by Harrison’s ex-wife Pattie Boyd, among others.
The ashram, now set inside Rajaji National Park, stands in ruins since the yogi’s staff were evicted in 2003. Talks about restoring it — recently reported in international newspapers — continue to be just proposals on paper. The ashram was opened to visitors in 2015, but fans had found their way in much before that. Artist Miles Toland from Canada was one such. His murals in the ashram have created an art walk of sorts and given a semblance of life to the dilapidated buildings. “My creative process was a feedback loop between the street culture of Rishikesh and the beauty of the ashram,” says Toland.
Jess and Sam, both in their 20s, came from Melbourne to experience the source of The Beatles’ inspiration. “It’s so peaceful here. You could sense the vibe of this place from the songs they wrote here,” says Jess.
Half a decade later, “holy” Rishikesh displays few signs of the time a very different set of gods came visiting. But folks continue to come looking for what The Beatles had hoped to find. While Naemo Tuba, a 32-year-old Hungarian yoga teacher from Melbourne, is here for a course on advanced meditation, 72-year-old Jeffry Dawson from Washington left behind an inheritance of half-a-million dollars and settled in Rishikesh to become a “yogi”. Locals call him Surya Dev.
But an open restaurant with a view of the river, called 60’s Delware or The Beatles Café, still gets busy in the evenings. “People ask me if I get bored listening to the same kind of music every day. I tell them, this is the music my father and I both grew up listening to,” says Manvendra Singh Senger, one of the four owners. “Norwegian Wood” remains his favourite.
At 9 pm, at a street-side café famous for its herbal tea, a few kilometres from the ashram, a no-smoking sign is discredited by rings of smoke and a rolled paper passed around between a group of six — Rahul and Rishab Ohra from Delhi, Marcus Roth from Canada, and Julian Joesph and Richard Krane from Spain. As Bob Marley’s “Is This Love” fades in the background, a discussion on the ashram leaves them divided 4-2. One side believes it should be restored completely and made into an eco-hostel, but the majority jokingly invokes the song “Let It Be” — words from a cult band that shaped a counterculture.
