Uttara Choudhury

New York: Paul Saltzman needed some peace after a shattered romance and sought it at the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s quiet ashram in Rishikesh. He had no idea at the time that he would bump into the Beatles at the ashram. In fact, he had no clue then that his pictures taken with a 35mm Pentax camera would capture a defining moment of the 1960s, the moment when Indian mediation went global.

Saltzman’s exhibition in association with the Indo American Arts Council opened at the weekend at the Morrison Hotel Gallery. It has 25 images of the Beatles and visitors can buy signed limited edition prints for $4,500 to $1,000. John Lennon’s ex-wife Cynthia Lennon, who was there at the ashram in Rishikesh when Saltzman took his pictures as a 24-yearold back-packer, says the pictures of the Beatles, sitting cross-legged with the Maharishi, were to spark a huge interest in eastern mysticism and meditation.

“I had no idea the Beatles were staying at the ashram till I reached its gates. Then the Maharishi’s main disciple told me it wasn’t a good time to visit. I decided to pitch my tent outside the ashram. They sent me vegetables and eventually after eight days — the disciple invited me into the ashram,” Saltzman told DNA.

Saltzman, who is now a well known two-time Emmy award winning film and television producer-director, says it was easy to hang out with the Beatles.

“Within five minutes of sitting with them I literally stopped thinking of them as the Beatles. It was a gift to see them as regular folks. I didn’t want anything from them and I think that’s why they took me into their small group and why the photos I took are so intimate and at ease.”

Since no professional photographers were allowed in the ashram, Saltzman got the only good pictures of the Beatles in India when they were at the height of their fame.

They lived in the ashram in simple rooms with bunk beds and a small chest of drawers. Saltzman took 54 pictures of the Beatles, Mia Farrow, Donovan and Mike Love of the Beach Boys meditating, writing music and living at the ashram.

“When I returned home to Toronto, I used several of the pictures in a magazine cover story; then put the transparencies away. My daughter Devyani had become a Beatles fan at 16 along with three of her girlfriends. I hadn’t even thought of the photo until, at 18, she reminded me,” said Saltzman who then used the pictures in a book,

The Beatles in Rishikesh, published by Viking Studio, Penguin-Putnam.

Saltzman who is film-maker Deepa Mehta ex-husband, says he would love to bring the exhibition to India; “I would love to take it to India but had no luck finding galleries to work with.”

Source : DNA