Saturday, December 04, 2010


Remnants of a grand legacy

The pictures taken by photographer Paul Saltzman of The Beatles in Rishikesh, while they spent three months at the Maharishi Yogi Ashram in 1968, are some of my favourite photographs of the fab four. I've always found the easy languor and freedom of spirit portrayed in those pictures very attractive. I particularly like a picture of Lennon and McCartney dressed in kurtas and chappals, composing together sitting on a doorstep. I had always wanted to stand on the same spot where the band once stood and gave transcendental meditation a shot. I wanted to visit the ashram where they wrote many of the songs that appeared on the band's later albums, especially the White Album. Maybe I'd spot a stray piece of paper with some lyrics scribbled on it that had miraculously survived the ravages of time, just as their music has. The Beatles Ashram, as it is better known, is hard to find these days. It is tucked away inside the Rajaji National Park in Rishikesh, Uttrakhand. During a recent visit, I was determined to trace it down and pay my respects. You have to cross the Ganga and walk about 4 km past various ashrams and cowsheds, till you come across a signboard that points to the Beatles Ashram. Soon you reach a shady alcove, besides which the river flows peacefully, its waters glistening in the sun. The ashram itself is in a state of ruin. There is only one guard who keeps watch from one of the balconies on the first floor. The architecture of the ashram is simple and elegant, and reminds me of a haveli. The peeling arches, the broken stairs and the crumbling jaali doors seem frozen in time. I stand there transfixed, turning back time as I walk into musty rooms that smell of decay, wondering whose private enclosure I am trespassing. It's unfortunate that this musical monument has not been restored by anyone and is falling apart every day. I'd recommend every visitor to Rishikesh to go to the ashram. If you are a Beatle maniac, then put this right on top of your must-visit list!

The above article appeared in HT Travel on 17/07/2010. To see online link click here.

Wednesday, September 08, 2010






THE BONG CONNECTION

"To understand Puja, you must understand Calcutta. And to understand Calcutta , you must understand the Bengali. It's not easy. Certainly, you can't do it till you come and live here, till you let Calcutta suffuse your being, invade your bloodstream and steal your soul. But once you have, you'll love Calcutta forever. Wherever you go, a bit of Calcutta will go with you. I know, because it's happened to me. And every Puja, I am overcome by the magic of Bengal. It's a feeling that'll never go away."


I rarely do enjoy reading Vir Sanghvi these days, but these words, I must acknowledge. Because he really does resound my feelings. I lived in Calcutta, following the heels of my father's posting. Like other places before it, I called it home even if I knew I was leaving someday. Leaving the people, the memories, my rooms that were full of my wall-scribbles, the loves, the places on the street, and the parts where you suddenly came-of-age.

I look back at my first day in the city. I was just a 20 year old lost in the crowd - I took refuge in the chaos of Chowringhee, chugged along slowly at a tram's pace, wept with joy in the city's beautiful rains, and drowned my sorrows in a puchka.

My most resounding memory of the city, is an early morning. On my way back from Pune with some friends from college in 2004, our 2nd class compartment (that was lashing with rains all night as we crossed the Bengal countryside) moved into Howrah station at 5am. The tracks were wet. So were the platforms. As we drove back home towards South Calcutta, I was drinking in the rain lashed roads. I was breathing an early morning of the city. People waking up slowly, hand-pumps working, water-bearers tip-toeing like ballet dancers, the breeze caressing my face, crossing Howrah and going home.

And that is what I miss the most. And that is why I'm almost tearful when I see Durga dancing in the Bengal monsoon in Pather Panchali.

Calcutta - I miss the little things. Walking early in the morning crossing Gariahat market, drinking dhap, eating a singhara at Gol Park, sleeping in class, listening to history lectures in Bangla, being clued out, taking a tram ride from Rashbehari Av to Maidan, buying my camera in Chowinghee, doing a telephonic interview with Bappi-da, pillion riding a bike in the lanes of Tangra, writing Final Cal Uni Exams in Tollygunge, watching an auto get stuck in tram lines near College street and overturn....

The other day I was in JNU in Delhi getting myself registered for an M.A in Arts and Aesthetics. I sought help from a senior on campus regarding a problem of procuring my Migration Certificate from Calcutta University. He asked me surprisingly, "Tumi ki Bangali?!" I've always felt this inside-outside connection with places....and at moments like these when a stranger is curious about my ethnicity or my home, I can't help but ask myself...is my home neither here nor there....or is it everywhere?

Going back to subject of Pujas, I witnessed my first ever Bhashan or immersion last year on the banks of the Yamuna in Delhi. I still remember all the vivid colors and the chaos of the people and the idols jostling together to and fro to the hypnotic beats of the dhakis. I found myself in that crowd of music and chanting...I found myself coming alive trying to capture the moments as best as I could with my camera. Maybe I was certainly lost before this. As the goddess fell in one instant into the water to melt into it, I too melted a part of me along with her.

And then here I was back to the city of my early 20's after 5 long years. It felt surreal to be back, to be able to identify with the people and the places and yet be an onlooker...through a camera viewfinder. How still similar is the city to Louis Malle's 1969 film Calcutta? I didn't feel any change after five years...it felt the same..the same old world. I was unable to place my feelings about my relationship with the city.

How did I look at the city six years ago? I kept thinking...jogging my memory to put words to a subconscious feeling. And I could only come up with one explanation - it was home. Those lanes, and bylanes and cornershops, the windows, the geography and the modes of transportation, everything everything was seeped within. So well sunk into the soul...that five years later...coming back to it all was as much a displacement of myself, as it was when I came here for the very first time.

Calcutta, Oh Calcutta...I still haven't figured you out.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Winter

heady summer days
lead to cold winter nights
and it will soon be time

it will be foggy again
the mist enveloping
love will still be a mystery
fleeting
like the seasons..
doesn't everything come and go?
over and over

Saturday, July 03, 2010



Piggies
The Beatles
Year: 1968
Lyrics: George Harrison
Album: White Album

Have you seen the little piggies
Crawling in the dirt
And for all the little piggies
Life is getting worse
Always having dirt to play around in.

Have you seen the bigger piggies
In their starched white shirts
You will find the bigger piggies
Stirring up the dirt
Always have clean shirts to play around in.

In their sties with all their backing
They don't care what goes on around
In their eyes there's something lacking
What they need's a damn good whacking.

Everywhere there's lots of piggies
Living piggy lives
You can see them out for dinner
With their piggy wives
Clutching forks and knives to eat their bacon.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

I'm trying to find a good copy of Ingmar Bergman's Summer with Monika (1953)...think it's time I saw this one, in the killing heat of Delhi. These stills from the film, have always fascinated me. Maybe its the the youth of the actors....their complete immersion into each other.....

And here are below some random words of me own.....
Summer oh summer!

let me run free in a wide meadow
ill sleep intoxicated in a flower bed
and dream sunny dreams

--

brown eyed boy
i watch you look
into a space
far out
take me there
where i can stay
watching you gaze

--

the music breathes me in
into a state of ecstasy
i reach the edge and flow
in and out over and below
closing my eyes
i enter my fantasy
dancing a dream

--Harman

Saturday, June 05, 2010


The Last Director


I just read an insightful tribute to Dennis Hopper in Sight & Sound magazine written by Brad Stevens and am wallowing in the discovery of one of his directorial films that I want to watch eagerly now, and a singer whose music feels really good this Friday night.

Song: Only when it rains by John Buck Wilkin
Album: In search of Food Clothing Shelter and Sex (LP-1970, USA)
Film: The Last Movie (1971)
Director: Dennis Hopper

It's a wonderful song. Ecoutez!

Link to Only when it rains



As always my biggest grouse is accessibility! Where can I find The Last Movie? (no result on my trusted download site). Where can I find the music of John Wilkin? The internet is throwing nothing on him (not even wikipedia). This just makes my quest for obscurity stronger! I did find the LP cover below.....



only when it rains does it rain
only when it stops, it is no more

all of them princes
all of them gone
all of them lovers
in search of their own
and you can look to the mountains
and look to the seas
but don't come calling
cause you won't find me
hmmmm hmmm hmmmmmmmm

For more on the film to understand why the song has been shot the way it has, here's the Sight & Sound link.
I have over the years started believing in breaking narratives down...only with anarchy does something new emerge. Can't wait to watch this one.

Sunday, May 30, 2010



Riding Easy

As someone who is a fan of Jack Kerouac, and a fan of all the crazy souls who love and live to be on the road, Easy Rider (1969) is a film that is affecting. Today, on the day of Dennis Hopper's death, I decided to sit and watch the film, his debut as a director. Hopper won for Best debut at Cannes in that year for the film.



Prepare for a real trip (drugs included) with Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson across America from L.A to New Orleans, through mountains, down rivers, meeting freedom-loving hippies trying to live off the land to the other extreme of conservative white Americans who could hate you for growing your hair.

What is freedom? What is it today - to be free...?

"I mean, it's real hard to be free when you are bought and sold in the marketplace. Of course, don't ever tell anybody that they're not free, 'cause then they're gonna get real busy killin' and maimin' to prove to you that they are. Oh, yeah, they're gonna talk to you, and talk to you, and talk to you about individual freedom. But they see a free individual, it's gonna scare 'em."

I'm amazed to read online, that Hopper made a film that was almost 5 hours long, and it was edited for over a year and brought to its current size. I enjoyed the way the acid trip sequence was edited, to be able to translate the experience of a trip onto film, is usually a work of art.

The music is great! Good ol' Steppenwolf, The Byrds, Hendrix and whole lot of others I must listen to. It's the music that really adds to its cult status. The opening credits cut to Born to be Wild...I don't think anyone can re-create that magic of Fonda and Hopper on their bikes riding out onto the great U.S Highway...looking for their America. Like a true nature's child, we were born to be wild, we have climbed so high, no never gonna die....

No, you are never gonna die.

Dennis Hopper (1936-2010)

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Life is a Haiku

I've been attempting haiku writing off late...inspired while reading Kerouac's Dharma Bums mostly. Some crude attempts below (all are not technically correct).

Copyright: Harmanpreet Kaur

Happiness-

meditating
under bodhi tree;
writing haiku poetry

the inane brings
sublime joy;
kills mundane

yellow wildflowers
sing in autumn;
riverside blues

Depression -

need that love
in you;
i sink

thanks for the drink
tonite;
i die

i fall into
the abyss;
rising from within

waves of melancholy
rising and falling;
time stands still

feel so gone
at my age;
i need - a drink, a good meal, dessert, deep inane silly conversation, love. besame mucho. s'il vous plait.


Random -

bored
on my workstation;
coffee spills

she fills the blanks
of an excel sheet;
colored boxes

Sunday, March 14, 2010





Glass Onion

The Beatles Ashram or more appropriately, the Maharishi Yogi Ashram in Rishikesh is located at a tranquil end of the city, a way that takes you through temples, ashrams, everything sellers, quaint cafes with foreigners dressed in crisp kurtas, chappals and rudraksh malas. At the end of the road, we spotted a yogi teaching a foreign lady the correct posture for an asana under a giant old tree. The river Ganga flowed on by, with its water glistening in the sun. We wandered on, till we reached a dead-end and dipped our feet in the cold river and felt the overhead sun beating down. Lazy after the walk, we napped. We walked back and spotted the Ashram's ruins. It felt like a shrine, a broken down haveli.... haunted with the spirits...of music...tangible structures too hold many things intangible.

I hope the Indian Government, which has taken control of the structure, restores it, and makes it open to all Beatles fans and visitors alike.

“Juxtaposing a person with an environment that is boundless, collating him with a countless number of people passing by close to him and far away, relating a person to the whole world, that is the meaning of cinema.”

- Andrei Tarkovsky

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Descent

The drive down from Dalhousie in the Chamba district of Himachal towards Pathankot in Punjab is through sleepy hamlets with small patches of bright yellow sarson flowers in full bloom. It is a descent that takes you through the hills of the Dhauldhar range, a memory for which I have no exact photograph, because I wanted to view it from my own eyes instead of a camera's viewfinder. (this does not mean I am lazy when it comes to clicking the shutter. Just a sensual state of languor)

It is in this state of semi-hypnosis that life feels clear often. Though what is that clarity, I cannot describe. Round and round, around you go, up and down over those curves, looking at crop circles of pahadi aloos (mountain potatoes). They are ingenious - these step farms. You can see the crop patterns from afar. They feel singularly alien. And as the mountain draws closer, you can see them pop up close with a lone farmer woman working by herself at the edges. Then a single house perched somewhere in the middle of the mountain. I next imagine a house for myself perched precariously somewhere at the heart of a mountain.

I burst out of that fantasy, for a clear view of the Ravi river. The light of the setting sun has painted a strange spectrum of red over it. The water glows basked in a bloody glory. And you leave it behind, craning your neck for another glimpse, another angle. The mountains surrounding it leave you. They come into view, and they go away again as your car spirals on downwards. You're watching them, they're watching you. And then they're no more.

Then there are villages, with cow dung cakes and wisened old sardars on charpoys. There is a sweet scent in the air and the sun escapes into the trees to the music on my ipod (Led Zeppelin are crooning Over the hills and far away). A finely cut-music video - where the view in front of my eyes intermingles with my day-dreams. In those moments, I want to hold on to the experience, knowing very well that it is only passing away. In another hour I'll be eating aloo paranthas in Pathankot. In three hours I'll be in a train reading a book. In ten hours I'll be crossing Kashmere gate. In a day I'll be posting my pictures on facebook. In weeks, I'll be writing about it. And there I've written it.

Anyway, I just wanted to tell you about a beautiful descent lying in my memory as fresh as those bright yellow buds of sarson.