The Beatles and India (2021) Movie Script

My family lived in
Arnold Grove in the 1940s.
The Liverpool Blitz
was terrifying,
and I will never
forget as a child
the drone of sirens and
approaching bombers.
The Grove's a really
neighbourly place
and we were always in and
out of each other's homes.
What was strange
for me was the music
coming out of the
house at number 12,
the home with the
Harrison family.
George's mother Louise loved
to listen to Indian music
on the radio.
I'm told that it
helped to keep her calm
during her pregnancy.
When I first heard Indian music,
I just couldn't really believe
that it was so, so great.
And the more I heard of
it, the more I liked it,
and it just got bigger and
bigger, like a snowball.
One day, the telephone rang
and my father
always answered it.
He had a particular sort
of authentic Indian accent.
His Indian accent had
remained unchanged
in all the 40 years
he'd been here,
and he was shouting
down the telephone,
"Ringo who, Ringo who?"
And apparently it
was because Ringo
was on the other end of
the line asking my father
whether he had a
spare sitar string.
The return of the
heroes to their native land.
They conquered the colony.
The Beatles, who originated
as a small-time act
out of Liverpool,
now have no rivals as the
kingpins of the teenage set.
The group had
certainly turned Liverpool
into Britain's answer
to any pop trends
from across the Atlantic.
On every side
there is hero worship
that recall the heydays of
Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra.
Beatlemania has ceased
to be a phenomenon
and seems to have
become a way of life.
My father had never
heard of The Beatles
so he knew nothing about
anything European or popular.
But what happened was that
they'd broken a sitar string
while George was
recording "Norwegian Wood"
in Abbey Road Studio.
EMI knew my father
because he was often
the person they came to
when they required a
group of musicians.
So, when the string broke,
they found my father and
he did have one, amazingly,
he did have a set
of sitar strings.
So the whole family got
in the tiny little car
and they all drove to carry
one string to Abbey Road
and there they handed it over
and they watched them recording.
It started
with the Indian music.
I like so many Indian
instruments, but mainly sitar.
I'd used a little
sitar on our records.
The Beatles had already
discovered Indian music,
I think when they
were making "Help!"
Which is, of course,
the story of a mystic
Eastern religious group,
and they are after
Ringo Starr's ring.
So they'd already discovered,
and there's that famous scene
about them going
into a restaurant.
On the set of how
a sitar was used
in a sort of little group that's
playing in the restaurant,
George picked it up
and was playing with it
and sort of got interested
in sitar because of that.
It was a very inappropriate
film for most Indians
because that film
really lived up
to all the stereotypes
about India,
about bloodthirsty thug cult.
The goddess, which
was named as Kylie,
was really based
on a real goddess,
the Kali goddess, Hindus
are very reverential to her.
So the whole film would be
offending a lot of Indians.
And then there was
this book on the yoga.
While they're on
shoot at Bahamas,
the suddenly come across
this very diminutive yogi
who cycles up to where they are
and distributes this book.
This is Vishnudevananda,
the first illustrated book on
yoga going across the West.
But I don't think The Beatles
paid him much attention.
I think much later
he thought back
and there was this sort of
very mysterious connection.
The palace of the Queen
has lived through
many historic events,
and it's our privilege today
to witness one of the most
earth shaking, The Beatles.
Fresh from an audience
with the Queen,
they hold medals indicating
they have been made members
of The Most Excellent Order
of the British Empire.
The Beatles, of course,
have proven to be one of
Britain's prime exports.
They have brought in
more foreign exchange
than many industries.
And the Queen saw fit to reward
their economic contribution
to the nation.
The award entitles The Beatles
to put the letters
MBE after their names.
That was the most
miserable time of our lives,
was the MBE cop-out period.
We got an MBE, which is
one of the biggest jokes
in the history of
this island probably.
The great cavalcade of empire
makes a grand spectacle.
One of the smallest countries
on the map is responsible for
the mightiest Commonwealth
of nations in history.
India was always in British
lives because of the empire.
We knew about tea and we
knew about, you know, rubber,
but the idea of its music
being, in any way, an influence
on anything from this country
was simply not considered.
From the music that I play
to get better and better,
musicians generally,
in the West,
progress into, say, modern jazz,
but when I first
heard Indian music,
there was so much more freedom
and there was so much more
in it compared to jazz.
I just couldn't really believe
that it was so, so great.
I don't know, then I just
started to listen to it
more and more, and to try
and listen a bit closer.
And the more I heard of
it, the more I liked it.
My mother meets The
Beatles in India
well before I'm even born.
I think she, by virtue of
being in the "Hindustan Times"
at that point,
being a preeminent journalist,
being a chief reporter,
got the opportunity,
but didn't really see,
my God, the magic
of that moment.
And you know, I'm always asked,
what's the one thing
about your mother
that you would have really
wished you would do.
And she's been Indian first
woman war correspondent.
She's done all kinds of
crazy trailblazing thing.
And I always look at this
photograph and I say,
"My God, I wish I
had been that person
sitting between John and Paul."
This was the first
time The Beatles had,
as a group, come to India.
And they symbolised to us,
not just a new kind of music.
It was almost like symbolising
a new kind of life.
They represented the
whole sixties to us.
When I heard they were in Delhi,
I went to the Oberoi
InterContinental,
and I sat in the lobby
and everyone was circling
all the different
entrances of the hotel,
waiting for The Beatles to come
out by the kitchen entrance,
by various ways.
I sat near the lift and I waited
for Brian Epstein to emerge
because I knew he
was their manager.
And sure enough, after
a few hours of waiting,
I saw him come down
and I sidled up to him
and I said, "Excuse
me, Mr. Epstein,
I am from All India Radio.
The government have
scheduled an interview
with The Beatles."
And he stopped in his
tracks and looks at me,
"How dare you!
The boys will not give an
interview. How dare you!"
I said, "I'm just conveying
the decision of the government
because this interview
has been announced
and it would be very
embarrassing if this didn't happen."
"I will not permit
this," he said,
"well, I will give
the interview."
I said, "Good
enough for me, sir,
Brian Epstein, good
enough for me."
Is there going to be any change
in the sort of
work that they do?
Possibly, 'cause,
as I've said before,
there's no dynamic
or important change
but The Beatles have
always progressed.
And to progress,
they have to change.
At seven o'clock I
go up in the lift,
I get out and I walk to
the end of the corridor.
I knock and there's Brian
Epstein in a bathrobe, sweating.
He emerges, walks me across
the length of the hotel,
opens the suite on the
other side of the floor,
and then I was in with The
Beatles, all four of them.
I asked them what
they were doing
and they said they had
an album coming out
in a month's time.
George Harrison mentioned that
he had an Indian influence
in one of the songs, which
turned out to be, "Love You To."
And Paul mentioned that he
had a classical arrangement
behind one of the songs,
which I think must have
been "Eleanor Rigby."
Even then, they were going
to be Indian influences
in their songs.
I personally hope there'll
be more Indian influences
just generally in any music
because it's worth it.
It's very good music.
I just like to see
it more popular,
more people appreciating it.
It was the 6th of July, 1966.
Some foreigner came,
they never knew what the
name of the person were,
but they were interested in
buying some sitars, harmoniums,
and tablas and sarod,
and that's all.
The huge crowd
assembled here outside
looking the new face
of the English people,
like the big hair and all that.
It was a craze.
My father and uncle
went to the hotel
and show an instrument,
and, later on,
gave lesson to George
Harrison specially.
After The Beatles, there
was a big craze for sitars,
tablas, and other instruments.
In a day, in a month, we were
selling sitar like hotcake.
The famous Beatles, they
came in 1966 to our stall.
They were dressed
very differently
so that the people there
could not recognise them.
And they walked into the store
and they started talking about
Indian musical instruments,
especially the sitar, the
tambura, and the sarod,
and also the tabla.
He was a good sitar
player, my father,
and he was showing
them how to play it
and how the finger
movements are,
how to coordinate both
left and right hand,
and, you know, how to
strike the strings,
how to pluck the strings.
They asked him whom he
learned the sitar from,
he said, "With Ravi Shankar."
Pa-pa-pa-pa, ah. Like this.
Ravi Shankar, as I see it, was
really the first ambassador
for all musicians,
artists, singers, dancers
from India to the West.
Over the last few years,
I heard the name Ravi
Shankar mentioned.
A good friend of mine told me
to buy a record, which I did.
This was the first
time I'd ever heard
Indian music properly.
But when I first heard it,
I couldn't really,
couldn't believe it really.
He's also been turned
onto Ravi Shankar,
by the, like, David Crosby and
Roger McGuinn from The Birds.
'Cause Ravi Shankar
had appealed to,
the sort of the Beat Generation,
going back to the
fifties actually.
It was all part of
that kind of ambiance.
I'm sure you must
have been asked this
lots of times before,
but what's your opinion of,
sort of, English pop groups
and American pop groups
using the sitar and the Indian
influence in their records?
It will make me very happy
if I see that some people
take true interest
and learn properly.
Because after having played
the sitar for 36 years,
I feel that one has to give
some time to it.
Indeed.
My father and my
mother were running
the Asian Music Circle.
My father was quite successful
at getting musicians
to come to this country and
he'd put on concerts for them.
It was very much for
erudite English people,
intellectuals who knew
about Indian music.
Yehudi Menuhin, amazing man.
He was the president to
the Asian Music Circle,
and I think it was through him
that Ravi Shankar first came.
And George was
fascinated by our family,
and so he was invited round
to spend the afternoon.
I think he came round for lunch.
Pattie was there as well,
and then George came
quite regularly.
Eventually, I said, if
we could get Ravi free,
and the time George was free,
we'd invite them both
together and introduce them
and see whether they got on.
And the doorbell rang
and I rushed to the door
and there wasn't
George, it was Paul.
Then Paul said, "I'm
Paul McCartney."
And I said, "I know."
And he came in and a
little while after that,
I think George arrived next.
And finally we met, very nicely,
at somebody's house,
having dinner.
We met just as two people
instead of being a
big publicity gimmick.
Ravi came in and we just said,
"Ravi, this is George,
George this is Ravi."
And we had a dinner there,
we just ate and talked.
Paul was a little bit
on the outside actually,
looking a little bit bored,
smoking like a chimney.
My young sister went around
collecting the cigarette butts
to take to school the next
day, the used cigarette butts.
And from then
he offered to give me,
to start me off on sitar with
a few lessons, which he did.
He had many students in India,
very talented musicians.
So to try to explain
what drew George and
Ravi Shankar together
is not easy because
it defies logic.
When George Harrison came to me,
I didn't know what to think.
But I found he really
wanted to learn.
I never thought our meeting
would cause such an explosion.
That Indian music could suddenly
appear on the pop scene.
George said that, "I
want to learn the sitar,"
and Ravi, he said,
"Yes, I can teach you,
but it's a very difficult
instrument to learn,
and you will have to
spend a lot of time
and your fingers will hurt.
It's going to be a difficult
thing for you to do,
but I want you to come to India
and I will teach
you over there."
So when Ravi invited
George and me,
I was thrilled to be going.
You know, 22, I hadn't
really thought much about it.
I thought of the King's
Road and you know, clothes.
And we started off in Mumbai.
Ravi took us to concerts,
private concerts,
that he gave in people's houses,
and then bigger concerts
in front of his students.
George Harrison came with
his wife, September 1966.
You know, Pandit Ravi
Shankar picks him up,
he takes him to the Taj hotel
and within about four hours,
the whole of the people in Taj,
it was just filled with
people and media and fans,
just coming in, shouting,
"George, George, George."
So finally George got just
fed up and he told Pandit,
"Let's give a press conference,
Let's go and talk to the press."
So, of course, Pandit Ravi
Shankar was the music director
of All India Radio
for many years.
So he said, let's go and do a
radio interview, studio one.
This is where Pandit Ravi
Shankar and George Harrison
did an interview.
So we searched for it,
and we actually opened
quite a few spools,
dusty spool lying in
the side of a corner.
And then we found George
Harrison, there was a paper inside.
It said "George
Harrison interview."
The tape hadn't been
played in maybe 30 years.
Good afternoon, George.
Good afternoon.
We would like to know from you,
do you think you could not
make a public appearance?
If I did want to
make a public appearance,
I would have come
here to do a show,
and I would've come with
John and Paul and Ringo.
It's just like,
all our fans who go to
school during the week.
Well if they go on the holidays
and suddenly somebody's
making them learn maths
and learn English
and learn all this,
then they don't like to do
that when it's their holiday.
It's the same for me.
I go around having
my photograph taken,
signing autographs
and waving at people,
and being a Beatle, and
when it comes to my holiday,
then, naturally, I want to not
be a Beatle, I wanna be me.
When I was 19, I went to India.
My aunt greeted me at
the airport and said,
"Do you know that George
Harrison is staying at the hotel?"
We asked around, you know,
"Where's Mr. Harrison,"
and we weren't told,
and then sort of hopped
onto the elevator,
and we started going to floors,
and then eventually
there was one floor
where there was a waiter
standing outside a room.
And I don't really know
what made me do it,
but I sort of hobbled in
and George Harrison asked
what I was doing there,
and I just said,
"I would like your
autograph, Mr. Harrison."
And he said, you
know, he sort of,
he wasn't too happy
about me being there.
I also said to him,
he had numerous fans
outside the hotel,
and his words were, which
I've never, ever forgotten,
"Tell your friends if they
like me, to keep away from me."
Which I thought
was rather nasty,
but I needed the autograph.
Everything
that Ravi had shown us
and told us about him,
introduced us to, made an impact.
He took us to the Ellora
Caves, fascinating.
And we went to
Banaras, Varanasi.
Banaras was unbelievable
'cause we came by boat
and Ravi had explained to us
the whole reason for people
coming to Banaras to die.
And they would request
that they'd be burnt.
And I was fascinated by this.
The pyres and then the family
or the wife or the husband
taking it into the Ganges
and letting their
ashes float away.
So Agra, we went
to the Taj Mahal.
It's beautiful, I love
the story surrounding it.
It was more exquisite
than I could ever have
described to anyone.
And then, towards the end
of our trip, Kumbh Mela.
There were all these sadhus
walking down the road,
and I said, "Ravi,
what's they doing?"
He said, "They walk
hundreds of miles
to come into this Kumbh Mela."
And I was just watching
this spectacle,
and all these people, you
know, families or groups
and sadhus, all of
India, it seemed.
He also told us about Indian
culture and spirituality.
Ravi took us to meet
his spiritual guru
and this man was over 100.
And obviously, we didn't
know what they were saying,
but it wasn't very many words.
And Ravi is a reverential
towards his guru.
Throughout my life
I look to the great yogi Taj
Mirage, my spiritual guru.
As a Hindu, I believe
blessing of guru
is the most priceless
thing in life.
It was very moving for me
to see somebody as powerful as
Ravi, but George adored him.
And here he was humbled
in front of his guru.
Ravi said that
there was something
that I found in George,
where he was so simple,
so down to earth, he
looked upon me like a guru,
like a father, and he had
absolutely no airs about him.
And that is something
-that we also observed-
-That's true.
When he came to our home,
he was absolutely a simple
person, not demanding anything.
I haven't learned
to play the sitar,
I mean, Ravi Shankar
hasn't learnt to play
and he's been
playing in 35 years.
He was not a sitar player
or a star musician,
but I have not seen Ravi have
so much time for someone.
This association, this
link, I can only explain it
that they must've had some
links in a previous life
that brought them together.
When George and we
got connected in '66,
it was like wildfire, you know.
He's like a son
to me. Same thing.
Sometimes I
feel like his dad as well.
He can be.
George Harrison, he loved India,
he loved Indian music, he
loved Indian spirituality.
So this thing, you know,
pushed Indian classical music
on the top, you know,
fusion we can call it,
Western and Indian
classical music.
And that was the biggest
fusion ever happened.
And then Harrison came
here to record "Wonderwall"
with Indian classical musicians.
He was interested in
meeting local musicians.
The Beatles use the
sitars in their record.
Somehow we were able to imagine
The Beatles as our band,
as an Indian band.
And you know, India
was a closed society
and a closed economy,
and it was a not very easy
to get your hands on albums.
In 1962 or very early '63 on
the international shortwave,
a group of people in
Bangalore heard their music
and said, "Hey, wait a minute,
this is very different."
What it did really was to
liberate an entire generation
from the cultural
shackles of the past.
The British had left in 1947,
this core was born
in the late forties
or early fifties, mid fifties.
When they came of age,
they rejected the past
and embraced the new.
In those days, most of the
musicians were really from
the Anglo Indian Catholic
Christian community
because they were the ones who
were more trained in English.
The Jets was really
the first beat band,
it wasn't so much rock music,
but it was known as beat music.
And the word beat was
not far from Beatle.
We started to model our
lives along the lines
of what The Beatles
were doing at the time.
The musicians those days
were more into singing
Jim Reeves, Everly
Brothers, Pat Boone,
and then bang came The Beatles.
And it was like an electric
breath of fresh air.
Whatever we were used to
suddenly lost its relevance.
One day we just woke up
and we saw an image of
the great Shammi Kapoor
with that Beatle
wig in a Hindi film.
That spoke about
the enormous power
and the clout of The Beatles.
My mother was a Indian
classical musician.
And then she bought
me my first 45,
which was, "I Wanna
Hold Your Hand."
Straight away and she bought
me a British pop magazine
where I could read about
what was happening in the UK
and the UK pop scene.
One day one of my classmates
came back to India
after the holidays,
and he brought an
album by The Beatles,
who we'd never heard of.
By 10 o'clock that night, I'd
fallen in love with the music,
that I'd heard it
three or four times,
that music grew into me
and I thought, "Wow,
this is fabulous."
We used to play those records
again and again and again,
you know, somebody listening
to the words, you know,
somebody who's trying to
figure out the chords-
- Yes, the solo.
- And the solos,
and the most difficult
part were the harmonies.
Beatles still remain
one of the greatest,
you know, harmony
groups, you know, ever.
We went to Calcutta, we
stayed with a friend.
And the first night
he took us to a restaurant
called Trinkers.
But when we walked in,
we were dressed in
our Beatle clothes,
and everybody got up
and started clapping.
I don't know why,
maybe they assumed we were some
famous group but we weren't,
but the owner of
the restaurant said,
"Hey, you know, the people
wanna know if you guys sing?"
I said, "Yeah, we sing."
He said, "Would you do
a couple of numbers?"
So we did, "She Loves You"
and "Please, Please Me."
We brought the house
down, shook our heads,
et cetera, et cetera.
The owner came and he said,
"Would you guys
like a residency?"
And that's how our
career started.
We were the first Western
music performing group
to be ever recorded in India.
At the HMV studios, and a song
which, of I'm not mistaken,
there was a song called "Pain"
and "The Girl Next Door."
I think "The Girl Next
Door" had some influences
of The Beatles.
Especially the harmonies.
- Especially the harmonies.
- The harmonies, yes, yes.
I was planning to go west
because, you know, forget
the Indian culture,
the Western culture was
what we youngsters wanted.
By some strange paradox,
The Beatles, who lived
in the culture I wanted,
were making their way to India.
LSD was really beginning
to make its mark in London,
in the the circles
that they moved in.
Some newspaperman
came up and he said,
"Have you had LSD?"
So I thought, well, I'll
either be cagey here
or I'll be honest,
so I said, yes.
Oh God, well,
I mean, the first time
was when George and
Me, John and Cynthia
were invited for
dinner by our dentist.
And that was a bit scary,
because, you know, what
was happening to us.
Do you know what I mean?
It's just, everything
is surreal.
And you look at your hand and
you're like 500 years old.
And then I'd hear my voice
and wonder where it came from.
And colours, and there's
an intensity to it.
When we took the
notorious wonder, drug LSD,
we had it and we went out to
a club and it was incredible.
When I got onto acid, right,
you know the day that you're
at a hundred percent potential
and you can handle
whatever the situation is,
with acid, or just after acid,
the percent of good days
as opposed to bad days
was just a bit better, you know.
They particularly got into drugs
and Indian music
at the same time,
and it seemed like there was
some kind of a connection
between the two, there
wasn't of course,
because they both
preexisted separately.
There must be
an intimate connection
between Indian music and drugs,
maybe because of
the bizarre sound,
and there should be a drug
connection he said that-
Just watch who you're
calling bizarre, Dick.
Yes, I have difficulty
with the word bizarre.
I meant B-A-Z-A-A-R,
the other...
No, wait a minute, there's
no way I can get out of this.
To Western ears,
the unusual sound
might suggest some sort
of chemical intoxication.
I'm not blaming George,
but you know, somehow
because of him,
the sitar became really
popular among the young people.
The hippies were the ones
who caught on to a new music,
and it just happens
that most of them were,
you know, were smoking
pot or something.
And, since then, the two
got caught up together
but it's really a problem.
Yeah, I requests to my
listeners to be in a clear mind,
because I like to
put them, you know,
- make them high with the music.
- Yourself.
Yes, and I feel rather cheated
when they're already high.
LSD opened them up to
experiences and awarenesses
of consciousness that
they wouldn't have got
in any other way.
Eastern religion, I think,
would have been opaque to them,
they wouldn't have been able
to understand it at all,
but, having had that experience,
suddenly these
things made sense.
George said that when
he first took LSD,
he heard voices in
the back of his head
saying yogis of the Himalayas.
Maharishi, good evening.
You once said even if only
1/10 of the adult population
meditated for short
periods each day,
it would not take
more than a few months
to remove the entire
accumulation of tension in the world.
- These are your words?
- I'm absolutely
convinced about it.
I saw an
advertisement in the paper
for transcendental
meditation classes.
So I went with a girlfriend.
England I've been
visiting once every year.
People do feel stress and strain
due to the greater
undertaking in their life.
Paul phoned George and said,
"There's this man
called Maharishi
who's going to come to England
and talk about meditation"
And I said,
"Oh, that's the same guy
that, you know, I follow"
So in those days, when
one Beatle did something,
they all did it, so we all went.
Now you've been
travelling the world now
for many years.
You've made, I think, something
like eight world tours.
Ninth, I returned this time.
This was the ninth completed.
Maharishi was the most powerful,
magnetically charismatic
person I've ever met.
He was also the happiest
person I ever met.
He was filled with this energy
that you wanted to be
near him all the time.
All of us who were on his staff,
we fought each other to
get into the room with him.
It was just the
right time, anyway,
there we were
waiting for someone-
Waiting for a guru,
- and he came.
- The great magic man to come,
and he came, you know.
There he was, he's just
talking about it all
and he had great answers.
'Cause he's got that
kind of thing, you know,
and he got a twinkle in the eye.
They told Maharishi
that they'd been seeking
a spiritual experience.
They'd been trying to
do it through drugs,
but it just didn't
work, you know?
And so he invited them to
come to Bangor, North Wales.
Where he would be doing a
meditation retreat for 10 days.
The Beatles seem to be
among your supporters now,
how do you feel about that?
They seem to be very
intelligent and I'm honoured.
And so you think that if The
Beatles adopt your teaching,
then they can spread it
amongst other young
people in England?
And much more,
not only England,
but around the world.
Because the word Beatle has
gone on in all the continents,
and younger people are
fascinated by their name.
What do you
think of The Beatles?
Very good,
intelligent young boys,
and there's great potential.
And their music?
Music I haven't heard,
but because they are
appreciated all over the world,
they must have something
very grateful in their music.
I think he's trying to say
is the things we're getting
into aren't that important.
Money has taken over from God.
Instead of trying
to get where God is,
we all try and get the
biggest bank balance.
That's what it seems to mean.
Peace of mind
is like an ocean, very deep.
And the activity's only
on the surface like that.
So if the waves of the ocean
contact deeper level of water,
then the wave becomes stronger.
That means that we're
going to be happier.
And much happier and
much more creative also.
He was found in his
second floor bedroom,
just after two o'clock this
afternoon by his housekeeper.
Mr. Epstein has been
unwell now for some months.
And he's been in the
habit of taking tablets
to help him sleep at night.
When Brian died, The
Beatles clearly were lost.
They were like jelly, their
manager, their best friend,
their man who they rely
on totally for their fame,
for their fortune, you
know, their guide in life,
was now gone.
John, where would you be
today without Mr. Epstein?
I don't know.
I understand that Mr. Epstein
was to be initiated here?
Mmm.
When was he coming up?
Was he coming up
in the afternoon?
Coming tomorrow. Just
Monday, that's all we knew.
I spoke to him
Wednesday evening,
then evening before we first
saw Maharishi's lecture
and he was in great spirits.
I wanted Maharishi
to bring him back to life again.
You know, I, by this time,
I'm giving him so much power
and how extraordinary that
they were with Maharishi,
who's now going to be, sort
of, their spiritual guru,
but also that they
could lean on him,
because they
trusted him so much.
So, for that moment in
time, he replaced Brian.
I understand that the Maharishi
conferred with you all?
He told us not to get
overwhelmed by grief,
and whatever thoughts we have
of Brian, to keep 'em happy,
because any thoughts
we have of him
will travel to him,
wherever he is.
I come to India because of I
want to leave material world.
Come to a simple country.
Ganga is a holy river because
it comes from Himalayas
and this place has much energy.
And it come down, no? Takes
energy and comes here.
The ashrams or monasteries
of the various religious orders
glimmer over the
smooth green water.
Though the sun is
hot, the river is icy,
flowing from a glacier
high up in the Himalayas,
the land of the Gods.
But Rishikesh, its name
means place of the wise ones,
is far from being a
remote or desert region.
Its one of the most celebrated
centres of pilgrimage
in the whole of India.
In the cool clear air
of Rishikesh, North India,
the meditation retreat
of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
Flower-loving yogi
told reporters
that his brand of peace of mind
could only be truly appreciated
by intelligent men of the world
with rewarding activities
and high incomes.
The purpose of life is the
expansion of happiness.
Anyone can find the way.
That's the basic teaching
of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
Are The Beatles really
going to find happiness
here in Rishikesh?
Are they really going to
become, as Maharishi hopes,
the practical
philosophers of the age?
Or must they return
home unsatisfied?
Eternal, rich, young
men victims of a fad,
looking for something, anything,
to make their lives worth while.
I was a reporter.
I'd heard that the best
thing that a reporter can do
is to beat all the other
reporters in getting to the news.
A friend of mine read
that The Beatles were coming
to stay with the Maharishi.
And he said, "Saeed, do
you know what it means?
The whole world and its
media is going to be here."
The idea is to beat them.
How do you beat them?
"Ah," I said, "the idea
is to become a disciple.
If I become an insider,
I'll get the story."
So I walked in, you
had to make some excuse
if you're a drug addict,
if you had failed,
if you are a junkie,
he whispered a mantra,
a chant, in my ear,
Which I'm not supposed
to share with anybody.
Then I went in, and
again, and again,
until all the sadhus
who were going to be his
managers recognise me.
The password was
jaguar will live,
you said jaguar will
live then you were in.
From Hardwar, to Rishikesh,
across Lakshman Jhula.
I was taking aback.
It was like a locust storm.
Journalist, after
journalist, after journalist,
hundreds of them,
"What's going on?
They're not letting us in."
I said, "They're not
letting anybody in."
Overnight, I went
off to Rishikesh,
with quite a few people
from all over India.
And it was very difficult to
even know where The Beatles,
where the ashram was,
because it was so fortified.
Fortified in the
sense that, you know,
there are a lot of police,
there was a lot of
bundobust in there.
The whole day, we would
just, early morning, wake up,
somebody said, "Hey, The Beatles
are coming to the Ganga."
And so we'd all rush up there
and wait there for
two, three hours,
but nothing would
happen, you know.
But it was like a celebration,
it was like an exhibition,
'cause, you know, there
was so much of joy.
One day, Maharishi
called me in and he said,
"The Beatles are gonna be
arriving in a few days,
but I want you to go
fix up their rooms."
They put me in charge to make
their rooms nicer.
I would have them paint this,
they'd drop so much
paint on the floor,
then they'd have
to paint the floor.
Anyway, we had curtains put up.
We had mirrors, we even had
toilet fixtures that worked.
They have mattresses
on their beds.
There's a fan club
of real beetles
waiting to welcome them,
but the hardest thing about
the life they lead here
are the beds they'll sleep on.
A hard wooden base, a simple,
rather than a spartan existence.
When they did arrive
he introduced them to
me and said to them,
"If you want to anything,
get a hold of Nancy.
Nancy will be my ears and eyes
in case you need anything,
you let me know through her."
So I found my way and I
went to the gate and I said,
"Jaguar will live."
"Ah," they said.
Oh, there was a hell
of commotion outside.
"How did this bastard get in?"
I said, "I'm just a
devotee of the Maharishi"
So anyway, I entered and
there under the tree,
Maharishi, George,
John Lennon, Paul,
their respective
ladies, a whole galaxy.
I mean, I can't keep
describing them.
I need a photograph.
So I called the sadhus.
I said, "Look, I'm
having difficulty
managing this on my own,
I immediately assumed the
role of publicity manager
for the Maharishi."
So I said, "Here's
a name, Raghu Rai.
You go outside, call him in.
This man came, who
was from the ashram,
and he says, "Mr. Naqvi
wants to see you."
I said, "Give me two minutes."
So I went in, I put a big
zoom lens on my camera
and put it inside my labaada.
So when I'm walking nobody can
see if I'm carrying a camera.
So I walked with him for
about eight, 10 minutes.
One sadhu was standing there.
So he was standing next to him,
so Saeed said, "Look there."
I was shocked.
Then I turned around
and I saw that guy sadhu
standing next to us.
And I said.
So he goes to get a
glass of water for me,
and Saeed says,
"Hurry up, hurry up."
In those days,
we didn't have auto focus,
auto exposure cameras,
so you had to set the focus set
and the exposure, everything.
And I take just one picture,
nicely focused and proper.
Under the tree, Maharishi
Yogi and The Beatles.
See this building, this is
the building where they lived.
This room, I'll
show you this side,
this is the room of John Lennon.
John Lennon stayed here.
Other Beatles were
staying in these rooms,
along with their
wives and family.
So when Beatles came,
I was a little kid.
We were enjoying the whole
atmosphere and the jungles
and Beatles and the
Maharishi, we were very close.
We never find he's a
celebrity, or some big thing,
we should not go near him.
So this was the
place where Maharishi
used to converse with
Beatles and guests.
Straight we can see River
Ganga, clear water and forest.
There was a raised
platform, rectangular shape.
It was used for posing with
the visitors and Beatles
for the group photographs.
Maharishi's
disciples can wander in peace
amongst the trees and bungalows,
or meditate in some quiet
spot overlooking the Ganges.
He doesn't require you
to give anything up
except drugs and
a week's salary,
in The Beatles case around
11,000 pounds a piece.
What exactly
have you been doing,
how do you meditate?
You sit down, you relax,
and then you repeat a sound to
yourself, and it sounds daft,
but it's just a system of
relaxation and that's all it is,
and there's nothing more to it.
By expanding the conscious
capacity of the mind,
mental capacity
will be stronger,
thought power will be great,
and when the
thought power great,
then the thought will find
their fulfilment more easily.
You go into do those
interstellar spaces,
where the spaces ultimately
shrink into your being.
Now, this gibberish goes on
and on and on relentlessly,
and you have these
people close their eyes.
And the more
unintelligible it gets,
the more profoundly
affected they pretend to be.
Because, I can't really imagine
anyone being moved by words
which are patently
and absolutely absurd.
His lectures were in the nature
of this kind of arcane nonsense.
Nothing succeeds like
success, and it succeeded.
Are you a business man?
I don't deal with
money directly,
but I'm conducting the
movement in 50 countries.
I can't be said to
be no businessman,
even though I'm not
dealing with money.
I was a young girl, 21 or 22,
so there I was in
this beautiful ashram,
I was taken to
meet the Maharishi.
He asked me to come close to
him, I did, too close in fact.
He said, I'm going to whisper
something in your ear,
the mantra, then he said,
"I want you to go down
into my prayer room,
and I want you to
concentrate upon that mantra
You're going to feel
like a new person."
And I actually believed that
this was going to happen to me.
It was a dark room and there
was some incense burning
and there was some things
hanging on the wall.
And I started
repeating the mantra.
I repeated it,
and the only feeling
that I remember
there was this intense desire
to escape from that place.
I went near the
Maharishi and he said,
"How do you feel my daughter?
Do you feel like a
different person?"
I said, "Actually I don't."
He looked at me and he said,
"I going to whisper
another mantra."
"Back you go,
repeat that mantra.
You might have to
spend a little longer."
By now, I was in control.
I repeated the mantra,
and within half an
hour I came upstairs.
I gave him a glorious account
of how I felt like a
totally new human being.
I felt like a different
person all together.
That was the only way to escape.
And I walked out into freedom.
Maharishi really influenced
The Beatles songs and
lyrics tremendously,
starting with
"Across The Universe"
which is written right after
The Beatles learned meditation.
In that song, it
says "jai guru deva,"
and Maharishi used to use
that expression all the time.
Now once more.
It is in praise of the guru.
So John Lennon put that into
the song, jai guru deva.
And then he said, "om," and
om is the primordial sound
that underlies and gives
rise to the universe.
Just the exposure
to mantras, I mean,
the idea was a repetitious
sound could create
an altered state
of consciousness
and you get it in,
"Hello, Goodbye,"
you get in goo goo g'joob.
Repetitious sounds
creeping into their songs,
whether deliberately or not.
I lived for three
days in a cottage
at a camp in Rishikesh,
just a hundred yards
from The Beatles.
I remember sitting
around a bonfire at night
with The Beatles, and Mike
Love of The Beach Boys,
And Donovan, and others
singing and playing the guitar.
It was a cold, cold
evening, and at some point
I muttered to the person
next to me, "I'm freezing."
A man seated just ahead of me,
wrapped in a huge brown
grey blanket heard me.
He said, "Move up, love, come
and share my blanket with me."
It was George Harrison.
I should have said yes,
but by then I had
successfully cultivated
an air of nonchalance
and looked at George like
he was a nobody and replied,
"No, thanks, George, I'm fine."
Four regrettable words that
I could never take back,
and that have haunted
me all my life
for what could have
been, but never was.
The person who was actually
sincere about meditation,
about Indian culture, Indian
music was George Harrison.
Maharishi said of
all The Beatles,
George is the most advanced,
and this is his last life.
George wanted to understand
why he was chosen to be famous.
He found curious that
he, a boy from Liverpool
who otherwise would have
had a very menial job,
was selected and was famous.
And he wants to know the answer.
Really the
only reason to be living
is to have complete
full knowledge,
full bliss consciousness.
Everything else is just
mundane and secondary.
The purpose is to transcend
from this relative
state of consciousness
to an absolute state
of consciousness.
Maharishi said, John Lennon
has many more lives to go,
and he must not give into
his weakness for women,
or it will ruin him.
Keeping company with himself,
it could be part
of the treatment,
John stalked along
the shady paths.
John Lennon when he
first arrived, he was grey,
he'd been heavily into
drugs, he just looked awful.
And then little by little,
you saw the change that
came over this man,
he had pink cheeks, he
started to be very sociable,
he was out playing his guitar,
chatting with other people,
and he was having
such a lovely time.
Meditation worked
all right, you know,
you can handle each day better
than I could handle it before.
I was mediating 8 hours a
day and things like that.
And it was really some
trip, like acid was nowhere.
Just sitting there just
muttering some word in a room,
that's the biggest trip
I've ever had in life.
Ringo is always in meditation,
and he goes by
feeling and heart.
Whereas the other Beatles
too much brain is in the way.
Ringo enjoyed
a peace of togetherness
with Mrs. Ringo, it was
a very peaceful scene.
Ringo Starr, two or three days,
he sees all this
and he declares,
"It's like a Butlin holiday
camp," and disappears, he left.
And then there were three.
Ringo and his wife, Maureen,
stayed at the
ashram for 10 days.
Ringo's allergies cause
problems with the ashram food.
He was allergic
to so many things
that he took two
suitcases to India.
One had his clothes
and the other one
was stuffed with
cans of Heinz beans.
But the primary reason
that Ringo and Maureen left
is because they
missed their kids.
Maharishi, I
thank him, you know,
all the time I thank him for
giving me what it gave me.
So I'm glad I've got it
in case I ever wanna
go into it again,
you know, you can't lose,
if you learn something.
Maharishi wanted to
take them off on a trip
to the Himalayas.
A company, Ganja's
Helicopter Services.
I'd always wanted
to become a pilot.
I became the chief
pilot for the Maharishi.
And I flew everybody,
including the prime minister,
and Mahatma Gandhi
also, and The Beatles.
Paul kept on saying,
"Me, me, me,"
because he wanted to get in.
And John said, "No, me, me, me."
And anyway, finally, John just
pushed him aside and went in.
I'm flying John on my left
and the Maharishi on my right.
And the Maharishi
lent across me,
as you know, he had a
lot of hair and beard,
it was difficult for me
to fly the helicopter.
He was telling John down
there in the mountains,
people lived there, they never
went down to the valleys,
and they're praying
all the time.
So John said, "What are
they're praying for?"
So the Maharishi said "They
are praying that we crash."
And John said, "Goodness, why
do they want us to crash?"
They said, "Well, they're
on the mountaintop
with hardly any food.
And I'm in Rishikesh with
all the celebrities there,
and all the money in the world."
So John said, "Maharishi,
if you don't move
your head and hair their
prayers will be answered."
And of course, I started
laughing and everybody did.
He had a sense of humour.
They were visiting Dehradun,
George, John, and Paul.
He said this Saturday,
they're having
celebration in the ashram
to celebrate the birth
of George Harrison wife.
If I could could bring some
other musicians along with me,
they'll be very happy.
So I said, I told them,
"Okay, I can arrange it."
So we all sat down,
Maharishi gave us a lecture,
and then I was asked to play.
There was a composition
with George Harrison,
"With In, Without You," which
was based on Dhrag Jhug,
so I decided to play that.
And then George was
excited about it.
And I smiled at him, he
smiled and he waved at me.
At that time, Nick sang with me,
and Nick was just
a visiting teacher.
Now tell me where did
that famous photo of us?
Was it in the middle
or was it over here?
Here?
Okay.
- In this area, in this wall.
- Okay.
I have such vivid memories
of that birthday party
where so much music was
played, so much glamour.
Pattie Harrison there
in her mauve sari.
Part of our mission
was to bring her
George Harrison's birthday
present to her, the dilruba.
It was so relaxed
coming from Britain.
The Beatles were impossible
to see or touch or reach,
and here it was a completely
different atmosphere.
They were absolutely natural,
all the musicians there.
I think I spoke to Donovan,
Mike Love, Paul Horn,
and of course, Paul McCartney,
Jane Asher, John Lennon,
I don't think I spoke
to George Harrison
because he was so tied
up in both the occasion
of his wife's birthday
and also the music.
He really was playing
music and enjoying music
and absorbing Indian music.
There was no pretence about
it. He was completely hooked.
The music started
off being very Indian
and played on
Indian instruments,
but then you could say it
deteriorated into a birthday party
with the "Happy Birthday" song,
and the British national
anthem for some curious reason.
As the evening went on and
perhaps people got a bit fidgety,
we went outside and
enjoyed fireworks.
Of course, I went away feeling
that perhaps the meditation
was all a bit of a lark,
because they enjoyed themselves
so much in the evening.
George Harrison was thinking
mostly of playing
better, serious music,
which belonged to the world.
But John Lennon was a
serious human being.
He was not very talkative,
but he's thinking
was very beautiful.
So I was slightly more
fascinated by John.
I think they gave me so
much respect, you know.
They treated me very
well, they called me, sir.
And I was feeling
strange, you know.
I told them, "Don't
call me, sir, no no no."
They could not have
seen me at all,
there was no need
for what they did.
Success had not gone
to the head, you know.
They were simple human beings.
We came up the path here,
we were killing time
and The Beatles meantime
had come back to their bungalow
and they were on the roof,
not just The Beatles,
but many of the musicians
were on the roof
of the bungalow playing music.
And it's the most memorable
thing of my day here,
was hearing this music,
which was of course
unrecorded music,
it was just being
created at that time.
And we felt we were
in the, you know,
witnessing the first time round,
the first version of this music.
The word was coming
to the Maharishi
that they had suspended
their meditations
and that they were sitting and
composing music and things.
We were there
for about six weeks,
and during that time was no
pressure from the outside world.
There was no pressure
of them being Beatles,
and their creative
juices just overflowed.
They wrote all the songs
from "The White Album."
They worked out gradually
what they wanted us to do
for the rest of their
time as Beatles.
Other than when they're
we in the studio,
they didn't get to spend
a lot of time together
So in India, they
were suddenly together
like sort of mates again.
So they could sit out and play
in the way that John and Paul
used to play in the council
house where Paul had grown up.
And you've got Mike Love
from The Beach Boys is there
so they've got that whole
tributary of American music
that had influenced them,
and Donovan with this
kind of folk tradition
and Paul Horn, who was a jazz
flautist, he was there too,
so you've got a
lot of interesting,
sort of, streams coming in.
I'll show you the stairs here.
They'd sit here on these stairs.
There here was bamboo
structure here,
as a fence, those days.
They'd come and they'd
make new song there,
staying here, sitting
on the stairs.
And that side,
Prudence were living,
Maharishi told her to be inside,
stay with their practises.
Mia Farrow's sister Prudence
way ahead of anybody else.
As soon as she
entered her thing,
she went into meditation
and she has not emerged,
it's already 24 hours.
So she's serious.
They would invite her outside.
"Hello, Prudence, come
out, come out, Prudence."
And she won't come.
And then they made a
song, "Dear Prudence."
I think one
that's kind of interesting
is when I came back from a
tiger hunt with my eldest son,
when we came walking in,
he said to Maharishi,
"I shot a tiger today,
is that bad karma?"
Sitting there observing
this was John Lennon,
and John said,
"Don't you call that
slightly life destructive?"
And I said, "It was
the tiger or us."
Maharishi glared
at Nancy the whole time
they were talking about it.
Life destruction is life
destruction, end of story.
That's how the song,
"The Continuing Story Of
Bungalow Bill" originated.
It was John's answer to
Nancy's paltry excuse.
Because Mike Love was there
and they knew The
Beach Boys music,
it was this kind
of friendly rivalry
of them wanting
to top each other.
But "Back in the U.S.S.R."
Is just like a parody
of a Beach Boys song,
but instead of being about
the USA, it's about Russia,
and it was a very
novel idea at the time
to think of a rock and roll song
that appeared to be
celebrating Russian culture
and had all these Russian names
and Russian places
being mentioned.
Opposition members today
demanded in inquiry into
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
Alleging that Rishikesh have
become a centre of conspirage.
The issue was raised
by Mr. K. Anirudhan
after a radio transmitter
was found on a bus
near the antibiotics
factory in Rishikesh
belonging to a foreigner.
The furor broke
out in parliament.
It was led by the communist,
backed by the socialists,
and they said that there was
a CIA camp in the ashram,
and the Maharishi were
getting all these foreigners,
including The Beatles,
to destabilise India.
I give the CIA total
credit for sponsoring
and initiating the entire
consciousness movement,
counterculture
events of the 1960s.
This was exactly the
time when Indira Gandhi
was making friends
with the Soviet Union.
Today we're going
to show you a cases
of attempted espionage by agents
of the Sino-Soviet
Intelligence System.
If you recognise the way a
Sino or Soviet agent operates,
both in finding someone
vulnerable to subversion,
as well as in their
technique of ensnaring him
and applying pressure
to get him to play ball.
The KGB sent their top
man in India, Bezmenov,
to the ashram to check
out the Maharishi.
My function was to discover
what kind of people
attend this school.
Yes, there are some
influential opinion makers
who come back with
the crazy stories
about Indian philosophy.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, a
great spiritual leader,
or maybe a great
charlatan and crook,
depending from which side
you're looking at him.
Beatles were trained at
his ashram, Mia Farrow,
and other useful idiots from
Hollywood visited his school,
and they returned back
to the United States,
absolutely zonked out of
their minds with marijuana,
hashish and crazy
ideas of meditation.
Maharishi used to always say,
"You can never create peace
through signing treaties,
through legislation, through
any kind of external means.
The only way to
create world peace
is for people to meditate."
See, if you carefully look
at what Maharishi
Mahesh Yogi is teaching,
is that most of the problems,
most of the burning
issues of today,
can be solved simply
by meditating.
Don't rock the boat,
don't get involved,
just sit down, look at
your navel and meditate,
and things, due to
some strange logic,
due to cosmic vibration will
settle down by themselves.
The single aim of spiritually
regenerating every man
everywhere in the world,
and creating peace.
You can get control of yourself
just by sitting quietly,
and by turning off from the
external problems we have,
and all this society,
you can go inside yourself
where it's always
calm and peaceful.
This is exactly what the KGB
and Marxist Lenin's
propaganda want,
to distract their
attention and mental energy
from real issues into non-issues,
into non-existent harmony.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
obviously is not on the payroll
of the KGB, but whether
he knows it or not,
he contributes greatly
to demoralisation
of American society.
Paul McCartney and his
girlfriend, Jane Asher,
stayed for five
weeks and they left
because Jane had a theatrical
commitment back in London.
This presumably
is your first big meditation,
and what effect
has it had on you?
I think it calms you down.
It's hard to tell
because it was so
different life out there.
It'd be easy to tell
now that I'm back
and we're doing
some ordinary thing
to see just what it does.
They were four working
class guys from Liverpool.
They had an innate sense of
not being taken advantage of.
So when they get
together with Maharishi,
Maharishi is inevitably
tempted to capitalise
on his sudden worldwide fame
because of The
Beatles association.
They realise that
maybe Maharishi
had been using them all
along for publicity,
ever since the final record,
that was "by The Beatles
Spiritual Teacher,"
it said on the album.
So John and George started a
think something fishy is here.
He's using us for publicity.
So they began to hear little
bits of news here and there,
from the grapevine of, you know,
your Maharishi's planning
this and planning that,
and you're gonna be in it
and they're going, "Are we?"
Maharishi kept promising ABC
that he would do a
special with The Beatles.
And The Beatles kept saying,
"We're not gonna
do this special,"
but Maharishi kept
promising it over and over.
There comes a time in late '67,
when Paul and
George go to Sweden,
basically to tell the Maharishi
to cool a bit, you know.
"Don't start making
plans that involve us
without telling us first."
We're glad to have you here.
- Thank you.
- Thank you.
We do appreciate
your music and...
That's a posy, yes?
The smell of the flowers.
We only decided
to come yesterday,
just to pop over to
have a little chat.
Yes, yes.
And when The Beatles
were in Rishikesh,
he, without their knowledge
was having the discussions
with a Hollywood film company
called Four Star International.
Maharishi promised them
that they could have
exclusive rights
to make a film about Maharishi
and about Maharishi's guru.
But unfortunately, Maharishi
made the same promise
to someone else.
He had given rights to
Four Star Productions.
The lawyer arrived in Rishikesh
with a signed contract.
They gave exclusive
rights to film Maharishi
for the next five years.
Some suits arrive from
Hollywood and a crew,
and John and George were going,
"We didn't want this, you
know we are here to meditate,
we don't want these
film people here."
And there was a
confrontation with Maharishi
about, "Why you're doing
this, we told you not to"
In any case,
The Beatles became quite
disillusioned about that.
The film was really
kind of a deal breaker,
and they got very angry
because they had been
granted exclusive rights
to do this film, and now
another film company is there.
So the whole thing
just fell apart.
I don't know what
happened, I still don't know.
But I know there many rumours
around, but John said,
"That's it we're, we're
going, were going."
But I know John wants to come
back to England and see Yoko,
and so any little excuse
and John was ready to go,
'cause we'd been
there for weeks.
Well, it was only
John who was upset.
John dragged George along.
And I still think it
was when Magic Alex came
from the Apple Corps group.
Alexis Margas was one of
The Beatles associates.
In fact, he was
very close to John,
and sort of attached
himself to John's hip,
and Cynthia really
didn't like Alexis.
She was very concerned about
this Svengali influence
that he was having on John.
John had introduced
Alex as, "My new guru."
He was this electronics marvel.
Supposedly, he
introduced himself
as somebody who is like
Edison and Marconi combined,
but in fact, he was
just a TV repairman.
He's just a friend of
ours who's in electronics.
Oh yeah.
He's called Alex, and he's
great, he's a Greek fella.
-And he's invented things-
-You know he's Greek.
He's invented incredible things.
He was a minx,
yeah, naughty, little boy.
You see, he wanted to
have power over John,
so he would, you know,
create all these things,
pretending he's a scientist.
He said, "Oh, here's this
one from new wallpaper,
but it's all speakers,
so the whole room will
have this one big speaker."
So he loved all that,
controlling John.
So clearly and obviously
Maharishi was in the way.
One night, John and Maharishi
were having this
wonderful rapport,
and I, you know how
you can see sometimes
when a person let's the
mask drop from their face,
and I could see this
really dislike of Maharishi
on Magic Alex's face.
It disturbed me and I felt
something was going wrong.
No one ever saw him meditating.
And as a matter of fact,
he admitted that
he came to India
for the purpose of getting The
Beatles away from Maharishi.
Alexis said, "Oh, it's because
we don't want Maharishi
to have that much
influence over the boys."
I'm totally
convinced that Magic Alex
made a friend of one of the
young women at the ashram,
and he got her to
tell John Lennon
that she was having
sex with Maharishi.
Is this just horrified all of us
when this whole thing happened.
I believe that
Maharishi made a pass.
And the reason I believe it
is because he made a pass
at many women that I knew.
Wasn't the first
or the last one.
Well I remember
Maharishi saying that, you know,
"If you haven't an
ugly woman over here,
and a beautiful
woman over there,
it's just easier
for your attention
to go to the more beautiful."
John and George
didn't believe it at first,
but finally Alexis
convinced them
and then went and got
taxis for all of them
before they could
change their mind.
While they were waiting
for the taxis, John wrote,
"Maharishi, Maharishi,
what have you done?
You made a fool of everyone."
The song had a lot
of expletives in it,
and George said, "You can't
say that, that's ridiculous"
So John changed the
lyrics to "Sexy Sadie."
Yeah, "Sexy Sadie," it was
actually called "Maharishi."
And it was a put
down in the Maharishi
in very vicious terms.
I don't think the
chance of it getting out
with the words that
John had originally,
but basically denounces him
and says he was
a bit of a rogue.
John dragged George along
and then he just
bolted from the ashram.
I think Maharishi was a mistake.
What do you
mean he was a mistake?
We made a mistake.
We thought there was more
to him than there was,
you know, but he's human,
and for a while we
thought he wasn't,
you know, thought he was a.
The Beatles, they
were opening us up
to different experiences
in various ways, you know.
Indian philosophy
and Indian music.
And then when they
went to Rishikesh,
you know, it was the
idea of Indian travel.
It's like, "Wow, looks
nice over there, you know,
they're enjoying themselves
in the sunshine."
There'd been a hippie trail,
an embryonic hippie trail,
in the early sixties, a
few people had gone out.
The whole point being
that you drove over land,
the ultimate destination was
in fact Katmandu in Nepal.
I'm sure The Beatles inspired
lots of people to go,
because this little
trickle of people
on the hippie trail beforehand
suddenly turned into a flood.
Did you enjoy
the trip over to India?
Yes, The journey was terrible,
but the trip was all right.
There was a report that we get
-we got a very bad report-
-Yeah its true,
we smashed him.
You didn't like him,
or you didn't have the patience
and decided to go home.
We were there four month
so, George and I were.
Did you think
this man was on the level?
I don't know what level he's on,
but we had a nice holiday in
India and came back and rested.
Maharishi looked visibly frail
and without his
usual effervescence.
His brilliant and
beautiful yogic radiance
was reduced to
grey and to ashen.
He became physically sick
when the chorus moved
from Rishikesh to Kashmir.
He's still a nice fella,
and everybody's fine,
but we don't go out
with him anymore.
When the Rishikesh
experience finished,
Paul, John and Ringo
just kind of carried on,
resumed with their lives,
but for George, India was
never a five minute thing.
India was a lifetime devotion.
And he wasn't just
gonna give it up
because of the way
that Rishikesh finished
with a bit of a sour taste.
India for him was something
that he continued to push.
George didn't
want to go back to London.
George was still
in meditation mode,
and he didn't want to go
straight back to see the press.
So he said, "Let's go down
to Kerala, just for a week."
And it was very calm
then, and then, you know,
he wanted to slowly come
back into the business life,
as it were, in London,
slowly, in his way.
I mean, because everybody,
all of a sudden
became an individual.
John, Paul, Ringo and George.
The Maharishi phase
faded out, you know,
but the Indian aesthetics
and the etiquettes
remained with everybody.
Using the influence of
Indian music and the culture.
You know, when you look
back at The Beatles story
on their return to the
UK in the spring of 1968,
there was still the comradery
that saw them through the
madness of Beatlemania.
Soon to dissolve as
the fraught sessions
of "The White Album" began.
Working separately most of
the time and not as a unit,
and with Ringo quitting the
band for a short period,
remarkably, they delivered
what many would call
one of their greatest albums.
When The Beatles were in India,
Maharishi told them,
if they don't continue
meditating regularly
their band would break up.
Now, does this mean a business
or emotional split
within The Beatles?
I should think a bit of both.
It's probably to do with
growing up and to do with
there was a time when there
were just four of them
but now they're married
and there are children.
I was born in 1971.
Same time around when
Beatles broke up.
I mean, even like,
I guess it's about 50
odd years or something,
it still sounds fresh.
It sounds amazing.
The world would have been like,
so shit without them, you know?
The world is so much
better to live in
with that music around.
The songs that they made
in India, in Rishikesh,
I had no idea and out of them
some of the songs like
"Blackbird," like "Dear Prudence,"
like these are some of the songs
that I used to perform in
my old band in Chennai.
To have known that they have
written these songs in India,
it just gave it so
much more meaning
because I used to
connect to these songs
as a classical musician,
more than a person who
loves English music.
I was born in '74,
so for me to get to know The
Beatles happened much later.
We were not really born at
the time when the dressing,
how a Beatles haircut or
the dress that they wore
really attracted us, I
mean, we didn't see that.
We only heard the music.
It's purely the music.
It sounded very
simple, very catchy,
and you could, you know,
have a high recall.
So whenever you heard a
song, you would remember it.
But when you sat
down to work on it,
to try and see if you
can sing that song,
that is when you realise
the complexity of it.
I don't know how it was
appreciated when it was released,
but it's something that
is still relevant today.
They came to see, in
the fullness of time,
in particular, in George's case,
George discovered from
gathering evidence
what exactly happened at the
end of their stay in Rishikesh,
and how Alexis Margas,
Magic Alex had cooked
up this whole thing.
George always loved Maharishi,
and toward the end of his life
he went back to see Maharishi.
George said to Maharishi,
"I came to apologise"
and Maharishi asked "For what?"
And George replied,
"You know, for what."
Maharishi apparently
said to George,
he believed that The
Beatles were angels on earth
and that they were not guilty
of any crime themselves.
So when George came
away from that meeting,
he felt cleansed of his guilt
of the method of their
departure back in 1968.
I got into India,
I think that was the
one thing in my life
that I could have done
without everything else,
but that one thing of getting
in touch with what's inside
through Maharishi and Ravi
Shankar and indie music.
And as for the others,
well they all warmed again
to the culture and the
spirituality of India.
The only way we can
change the system
is by changing it non-violently,
because they've done the
violent for millions of years.
I think the only way to
do it is Gandhi's way,
and that's nonviolent,
passive, positive,
or whatever they
call it these days.
John Lennon spoke kindly of
Maharishi in other interviews.
Ringo and Paul have
both said the same,
everything became okay
again, in the end.
Years ago, we studied
meditation with the Maharishi.
He was one of the ones
that wasn't a fake.
There were a lot of
them around that time
who were into Rolls
Royces and chicks.
He wasn't one of them.
I actually met him
quite recently.
He lives in the Netherlands now,
and I took Stella, my daughter
and James, my son with me.
And he is a spry old codger,
he in his eighties and
he's still working,
he's still going.
The day when Maharishi
died, there was a big storm.
The water from the river
Ganges came whirling up
and it showered in this area.
The local folks who
came here to pay
their tributes to
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
were amazed to see this
supernatural thing.
It was a power of Maharishi
which brought Gunga on
this top of mountain.
When I first came
here 10 years ago,
this was just jungle,
ruins and jungle.
And we would sneak
in through the back,
there were cracks in the wall,
and you would smoke pot
and see leopards at night.
This is what people did.
So I take tourists into the
ashram, I show them everything,
and I'm trying to bring
them back into 1968
and give them some of the
experience of The Beatles here.
Tourists that come here,
they really appreciate it.
They really appreciate to
have the sense for The Beatles
as a historical entity.
My experience when I went
to The Beatles ashram
was super magical.
These huge superstars,
you wouldn't really think that
they'd go to a really simple,
no-frills ashram in Rishikesh.
The most exciting
thing about music
is the way that it has the
capacity to shift cultural norms
and expand people's minds,
and in India, that's
exactly what The Beatles did
by bridging the gap
between East and West
in a country that was very
much under this, you know,
dark cloud of colonial rule.
Which in many ways created
a culture of apology
for being Indian and a reverence
for whatever was foreign.
That what was so powerful
is for the most powerful
band in the world
to come and revere our culture.
They had descended in
our part of the country,
and they had embraced the
spiritual narrative of India,
and they had come to Rishikesh,
and there were images
of them with Mahesh Yogi
and then suddenly we
look, they are one of us.
As kids, as Indian
kids, you know,
we're always rebelling
against our culture.
And then you realise
that like something
that is so influential
in pop culture,
took a lot of
influence from India.
My introduction to them
was I happened to be part
of the age of
illegal downloading,
at the time of like
Napster and stuff.
We used to have "The
White Album" on CD.
That was my first
introduction to The Beatles.
We still felt it's influence
even though we were born like
in the eighties and nineties.
India is considered this
place where you could go
for a spiritual
awakening, for meditation,
so I think The Beatles came
to India to look for that.
And in some ways they
really did find that.
I guess that's a small gift
that India gave the world
through The Beatles.
The happiest time in life,
one of the happiest
times was in India.
I mean, it was
just such a groove.
And it was such a pure thing,
everything is slightly
more in perspective.
The whole of life
should be a spiritual experience
because we are spirits who
are just encased in bodies.
People forget that and think
they're just this body,
but we're actually
spirits in bodies.