<p>We were five of us, bright-eyed young boys, steeped in a love of music. Our boarding school allowed us to go on short weekend camping trips around the Doon Valley. So we hired cycles from the cycle shop down the road and set off for Raiwala, 30 km from Dehradun.</p>.<p>The Doon Valley is replete with shallow, fast-flowing streams of cool, clear water. It was common for us to camp by the riverside so as to use the water for cooking and swimming. We had hired from the school mountaineering section a tent, sleeping bags, and a stove and took a few provisions from the kitchen. We would take turns at cooking mostly rice, lentils and vegetables and throw in some eggs for breakfast. At sunset we would go swimming and then spend the early part of the night listening to music on a battery-operated HMV turntable that played 45 rpm records. </p>.<p>One evening while swimming I dropped my watch in the sand. When I announced my loss, everyone was surprised by my nonchalance. The next morning when we were packing up, a friend found it embedded in the sand. Almost immediately a discussion ensued, “Let’s sell the watch and go to Rishikesh.”</p>.<p> “Anyway, you don’t seem to be bothered by the loss. Come on, yaar, let’s go and see the Beatles.”</p>.<p>The Beatles were visiting India and were cloistered in the ashram of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Rishikesh was not too far from Dehradun but a bit too far to bicycle it.</p>.<p>So we sold the watch at a pawnshop for Rs 80, boarded a bus with our cycles on the roof, and left for Rishikesh. Mahesh Yogi was relatively unknown then, so we were welcomed to the ashram and invited to listen to one of his lectures. </p>.<p class="bodytext">After a long discourse on Transcendental Meditation, most of which went over our 14-year-old heads, we requested the ashram officials to show us around the ashram. We obviously couldn’t reveal that we had actually come to see the Beatles. They took us around a well-appointed little colony of neat little cottages dotting the hillside on the banks of the Ganga. </p>.<p class="bodytext">After walking around a bit, we finally popped the question, “Where do the Beatles live?”</p>.<p class="bodytext">There was a noticeable hesitation, and one of the guides said, “Well, they have requested absolute privacy, but we will take you close.” They took us to about 20 yards away from a large cottage. We craned our necks to look over the hedge, hoping to get a glimpse of them. <br />But they stayed indoors behind curtained windows.</p>.<p class="bodytext">As we tiptoed into the sunset, the faint chords of Strawberry Fields Forever drifted through and etched this tryst into my memory forever! </p>
<p>We were five of us, bright-eyed young boys, steeped in a love of music. Our boarding school allowed us to go on short weekend camping trips around the Doon Valley. So we hired cycles from the cycle shop down the road and set off for Raiwala, 30 km from Dehradun.</p>.<p>The Doon Valley is replete with shallow, fast-flowing streams of cool, clear water. It was common for us to camp by the riverside so as to use the water for cooking and swimming. We had hired from the school mountaineering section a tent, sleeping bags, and a stove and took a few provisions from the kitchen. We would take turns at cooking mostly rice, lentils and vegetables and throw in some eggs for breakfast. At sunset we would go swimming and then spend the early part of the night listening to music on a battery-operated HMV turntable that played 45 rpm records. </p>.<p>One evening while swimming I dropped my watch in the sand. When I announced my loss, everyone was surprised by my nonchalance. The next morning when we were packing up, a friend found it embedded in the sand. Almost immediately a discussion ensued, “Let’s sell the watch and go to Rishikesh.”</p>.<p> “Anyway, you don’t seem to be bothered by the loss. Come on, yaar, let’s go and see the Beatles.”</p>.<p>The Beatles were visiting India and were cloistered in the ashram of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Rishikesh was not too far from Dehradun but a bit too far to bicycle it.</p>.<p>So we sold the watch at a pawnshop for Rs 80, boarded a bus with our cycles on the roof, and left for Rishikesh. Mahesh Yogi was relatively unknown then, so we were welcomed to the ashram and invited to listen to one of his lectures. </p>.<p class="bodytext">After a long discourse on Transcendental Meditation, most of which went over our 14-year-old heads, we requested the ashram officials to show us around the ashram. We obviously couldn’t reveal that we had actually come to see the Beatles. They took us around a well-appointed little colony of neat little cottages dotting the hillside on the banks of the Ganga. </p>.<p class="bodytext">After walking around a bit, we finally popped the question, “Where do the Beatles live?”</p>.<p class="bodytext">There was a noticeable hesitation, and one of the guides said, “Well, they have requested absolute privacy, but we will take you close.” They took us to about 20 yards away from a large cottage. We craned our necks to look over the hedge, hoping to get a glimpse of them. <br />But they stayed indoors behind curtained windows.</p>.<p class="bodytext">As we tiptoed into the sunset, the faint chords of Strawberry Fields Forever drifted through and etched this tryst into my memory forever! </p>
