Harrison's Eastern roots

[Guest guest]

Harrison's Eastern roots

Harrison,led the Beatles' spiritual quest

By BBC News Online's Sanjoy Majumder in Delhi

India and the Beatles have always shared a special relationship with

the Liverpool band being seen by many as bringing Indian music to the

West.

 

The 1960s counter-culture of alternative lifestyles, drugs and anti-

materialism was a perfect time for anyone seeking cultural, personal

and sexual freedom.

 

 

 

Just imagine some Indian villager trying to play the violin when you

know what it should sound like

 

Ravi Shankar on Harrison's attempt at the sitar

And it is the former Beatle, George Harrison, who was the impetus for

the group's spiritual quest of the 1960s which brought them to this

country.

 

In 1965, on the set of the Beatles' second film, Help, he discovered

the Indian string instrument, the sitar.

 

Soon after, the group recorded the song Norwegian Wood - becoming the

first western rock band to use the sitar and herald the short

lived "raga-rock" genre.

 

A year later, Harrison was in India, to learn how to play the

instrument under the renowned sitar maestro Ravi Shankar.

 

Ravi Shankar

 

In an interview with the BBC's Mark Tully in April 2000, Shankar said

when he first heard Harrison playing the sitar in Norwegian Wood, he

was not impressed.

 

 

 

Shankar struck up a friendship with Harrison in 1966

 

"I couldn't believe it," he said, "it sounded so strange. Just

imagine some Indian villager trying to play the violin when you know

what it should sound like."

 

But the partnership was to endure, despite Shankar's objection to the

Beatle's experiments with drugs and the hippie generation's

misrepresentation of India.

 

 

 

George was easily the most naive of the Beatles, but he was also the

most sincere

 

Indian journalist Saeed Naqvi

Harrison produced some of Shankar's albums including the very

successful Chants of India.

 

Harrison and Shankar also inspired the 1971 concert for Bangladesh,

the first major rock charity fundraiser.

 

But Harrison's attraction to India did not end at furthering his

musical boundaries - he led the Beatles in exploring Eastern

mysticism, something which was to change him profoundly.

 

Spiritual journey

 

One reason he became interested in India, he was to say in a 1992

interview, was because "it unlocked this enormous big door in the

back of my consciousness".

 

It brought him in close contact with an Indian spiritual guru,

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

 

 

 

Harrison became deeply interested in India

 

Indian journalist Saeed Naqvi shared an apartment with Harrison at

the Maharishi's retreat on the banks of the Ganges in Rishikesh,

where they were attending a course on transcendental meditation.

 

"George was easily the most naive of the Beatles, but he was also the

most sincere. The others were out to have some fun but George was

serious about India and the Maharishi," he told BBC News Online.

 

"I remember his spending hours outside the Maharishi's room, playing

the sitar and composing - he even composed a piece with Donovan which

was never cut."

 

Eventually he became a devotee of the Hindu God Krishna, donating

large sums of money to the International Society for Krishna

Consciousness and even donating a 23-acre site outside London to the

movement.

 

He also incorporated the trademark Hare Krishna chants in his music.

 

The 1960s have long passed and India is now home to the MTV

generation.

 

But for some, Harrison brings back memories of a time when the West

turned to India for inspiration and enlightenment.