The everlasting spell of the Beatles

The auditorium at the Bangalore International Centre was packed. The BIC event was a documentary, The Beatles and India, directed by Indian journalist Ajoy Bose.There had been other documentaries on the Fab Four before, but this one promised to be more interesting because it focussed on the British band's famous 1968 trip to Rishikesh. In fact, one of the first articles I wrote as an intern was about a handsome young hippie dressed in dirty, tattered clothes who sat on the pavement near my central Delhi office with a dog and a hat in front of him and a sign that said help me reach home.Foreigners dressed in bizarre Indian clothes and hollow eyes wandered around offering flowers to strangers. Mia Farrow had arrived with her sister after her break-up with Frank Sinatra.Ringo Starr left within 10 days and no one quite knew why.The time for me to leave Hindustan Times was also coming closer. I had seen the Beatles, dressed in Indian clothes and wearing flower garlands, celebrating birthdays at the ashram, and practising songs outside the rooms especially built for them.I had seen the ever-smiling Mahesh Yogi posing with a flower in his hand.I had listened to interviews with people who had managed to get inside the ashram and with those who had interacted with the Fab Four during their visit.