India Archives - Hey Dullblog, the Beatles fan blog

Magical Mystery Band: The Beatles and God

By Nancy Carr|2016-02-17T10:41:20-08:00February 17, 2016|1964, Eastern religions, Guest blogger, India, rishikesh, Transcendental Meditation|

by Chris Dingman, guest Dullblogger I was born on April 3, 1964, the week The Beatles saturated the US pop charts like no act before or since, claiming the first five songs and fully fourteen percent of the top 100. But I wouldn’t hear them until some years later, when they would spark my first ideas of God. Chris Dingman -- you can read more about him and his projects at the end of this post. We tend to see Copernicus’s realization that the earth revolves around the sun instead of vice versa as the beginning of the end of [...]

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Beatles Ashram is Now Open!

By Michael Gerber|2015-12-09T11:11:43-08:00December 9, 2015|1968, India|

By law, this photo must accompany any article regarding the Beatles in India. It's always sorta been open to the public -- if you wanted to give a local five rupees and sneak over the wall -- but now the Indian government has made the Maharishi's old compound in Rishikesh a tourist attraction. In 1968, the Fab Four wrote most of the White Album while staying at the ashram located in the Rajaji national park, besides the river Ganges. Since the Maharishi left in the 1970s it has been overtaken by forest, but on Tuesday, 35 years to the day [...]

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John and Paul, Friends and Rivals

By Nancy Carr|2015-10-15T12:42:31-07:00October 15, 2015|1969, Breakup, India, John and Paul, rishikesh|

This started as a comment on Mike's "Were John and Paul Lovers?" post. Though I wrote it before commenter Marcua's thoughts came in, we're expressing some similar ideas about the probable roots of John's post-India hostility toward Paul. I very much doubt that Lennon and McCartney were ever lovers. There's enough credible evidence that Lennon talked about and expressed interest in bisexuality for me to think he, at some point, recognized a degree of attraction to Paul. And there's enough from Paul ("he had beautiful hands," etc.) for me to think it might have gone both ways, if not as strongly. Could [...]

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The Beatles as rock gods…literally

By Nancy Carr|2014-12-28T13:52:46-08:00December 18, 2014|Beatle-inspired, Beatles merch, Beatles on the Web, India, rishikesh|

NANCY CARR • Sarah Yakawonis, who runs the Etsy shop Yakawonis Quilling, has created images of each of the Beatles as a literal rock god, with intriguing results. Looking perfectly contented, George. George, perfectly at home With George's affinity for Indian spiritual traditions, it's appropriate that he comes off particularly well (his portrait incorporates aspects of Krishna). With his beads and meditative posture, George looks like he'd be right at home in Rishikesh, and as if he could hold his serene pose indefinitely. Watch out for that fire, John. John, creating and destroying If John were a Hindu deity, [...]

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George Harrison and Krishna: Devotional Display in Dallas

By Nancy Carr|2015-01-03T14:55:32-08:00October 15, 2014|Art, B.G. Sharma, Eastern religions, George Harrison, India|

NANCY CARR * While looking at the jade collection in the Crow Collection of Asian Art in Dallas earlier this week, I was surprised to hear "My Sweet Lord" playing faintly in the distance. A museum worker was moving pedestals around in a nearby gallery, preparing for a new exhibit: was she listening to the radio quietly? Or did I just have such an advanced case of Beatles-on-the-brain that the song was only in my head? Krishna, cowherds, and cows sheltering during a storm by B.G. Sharma No, the answer was upstairs, in the exhibit "Seeing and Believing: Krishna in [...]

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Update: George Harrison’s India photos (and John’s Spain ones)

By Michael Gerber|2015-04-14T04:44:35-07:00July 17, 2014|1966, George Harrison, India, Photos|

Shooting Film has a lovely post collecting all of the fisheye selfies taken by The Quiet One in India in 1966. You should read the whole post, but I'll paste the whole set of George Harrison's India photos below. [h/t Dangerous Minds, whose ever-snappy writeup is here.] FISHEYES FOREVER: ...and as a special Dullblog bonus, here's another fisheye shot from the same period, which I first saw in Devin's book Magic Circles. John's in Almería, Spain, filming How I Won the War. DM here: Thanks to Mike for posting what I knew was the only possible closing photo for my book. I [...]

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