THE DESTINATION50 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC TRAVELLER INDIA | JULY 2019
QUYNH ANH NGUYEN/MOMENT UNRELEASED/GETTY IMAGES(STREET),ANDYLID/ISTOCK EDITORIAL(STAMP)bought a sitar, sarod, and tanpura to use on Beatles’ recordings,
before I headed to Rishikesh where they meditated in 1968.
In Bombay, I snuck into the Taj Mahal Palace hotel where, in
1966, Harrison took sitar classes from Ravi Shankar. The hotel
has since renamed his room ‘The Ravi Shankar Suite,’ though
before I could get a peek inside the security promptly threw me
out as I was dressed too much like the Beatles, hippie style. On
that trip, Harrison also visited the actual Taj Mahal in Agra to
click an iconic selfie—perhaps the world’s first actual selfie.
On my maiden U.S. trip, later in the 1990s, I made sure to
land at J.F.K. rather than Newark just because that was where
the four first set their eight feet on American soil in 1964 and
went on to hold a hilarious airport press conference. Their U.S.
debut concert was at Carnegie Hall, followed by a TV broadcast
from the Ed Sullivan theatre on 1697 Broadway, watched by
one quarter of the American population (which poses the
question, what on earth were the rest doing?). I certainly
went to Madison Square Garden where Lennon performed
live for the last time ever in 1974 together with Elton John.
My NYC walk ended at 72nd Street, at the corner of Central
Park West, where he used to live in an apartment building
amongst celebrity neighbours, such as, actress Lauren Bacall
and composer Leonard Bernstein. It was right at the entrance
that Lennon was shot down returning from a late-night studio
session by a demented fan. A three-acre memorial garden
called ‘Strawberry Fields’ pays tribute across the road in
Central Park.
HERE, THERE AND IN LIVERPOOL
Happier days awaited in Liverpool, as I took a bus to the
Woolton suburb riddled with places reminiscent of the Beatles.
On 251 Menlove Avenue, I tracked down Lennon’s childhood
home, Mendip’s—a 1930s semi-detached villa now owned
by the U.K.’s National Trust. As a kid he would play guitar
on the porch and amuse himself at the nearby Strawberry
Field orphanage. The McCartney family home on 20 Forthlin
Road is also managed by the trust. Other hotspots include
Penny Lane and the parish church where Lennon-McCartney
originally teamed up in 1957 (and where a woman named
Eleanor Rigby lies buried).
I left the quiet neighbourhood and headed to where the pre-
Beatlemania action actually happened—downtown Liverpool.
The harbour town has certainly capitalised on its Beatles
connection with Magical Mystery bus tours and the Hard Day’s
Night Hotel, and the laundry list went on to include a fancy
replica of the Cavern Club (the original, where they used to be
the house band was demolished long back).
I opted to down a pint at the not-so-glamorous
Jacaranda (Slater Street) where they performed before their
breakthrough—in the crammed basement there are murals
painted by the The Beatles’ original bassist Stuart Sutcliffe.
One profile on the wall looked like Lennon’s face. In fact, I
drank at every pub with the slightest association with them: at
The Grapes on Mathew Street they had pints before heading to
the Cavern Club, Ye Cracke on Rice Street is where Lennon and
Cynthia (his first wife-to-be) had their first date, The Pilgrim
on Pilgrim Street is famous for some Beatle thing or the other,
and Philharmonic (Hope Street) was the snazziest of their
local hangouts.
These pubs, which seem to have remained unchanged
throughout the ages, brought me closer to them than the
official Beatlemania tourism industry did—the only drawback
is that a diehard fan doing all the Beatles-pubs needs a bladder
the size of Liverpool’s harbour!To this day there
are still bidding
wars over Beatles’
postage stamps
(inset); At The
Grapes fans can
still pregame like
the Fab Four (lef t).
Facing page: Lennon
would gambol on
the grounds of
Strawberry Fields
as a youngster
(top); The Beatles
were one of the
rare guest groups
actually paid to go
on The Ed Sullivan
Show (bot tom lef t);
While shooting A
Hard Day’s Night
George Harrison
accidentally
fell down at
Marylebone
Station while being
chased by fans,
a scene kept in
the film.