Beatles Ashram
The ashram gained international attention between February and April 1968 when the English rock band the Beatles studied meditation there, along with celebrities such as Donovan, Mia Farrow and Mike Love.
[7] The ashram is located due east of the Muni Ki Reti area of Rishikesh, in the north of the city, and on the opposite bank of the river.
In the late 1960s, access to the cliff-top facility was possible via the Lakshman Jhula footbridge, 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) north-east of the centre of Rishikesh, at the village of Tapovan, followed by a 2-mile walk back downriver and a steep climb up the rocky path to Manikoot.
Before the opening of Ram Jhula, vehicles crossed the Ganges over the narrow bridge at Haridwar, south of Rishikesh, and then travelled 13 miles along a twisty and potholed dirt road to the ashram.
[15] He also comments on the less traditional design aspects: "One four-story building has a stepped pyramid design and multifoil arches above the doorways, and on the roof there are massive white structures shaped like ostrich eggs ..."[15] Shumsky writes that the Maharishi's bungalow was a "simple brick, concrete, and stone" building, and far from the lavish accommodation commonly depicted in the media in the aftermath to the Beatles' stay at the ashram.
Beyond the fence, the forest was thick with teak, guava and sissoso[clarification needed] trees, while inside were gardens filled with flowerbeds of red hibiscus.
[20] For the Beatles' stay in early 1968, according to one of the Maharishi's aides at the time, Ravindra Damodara, four small stone-covered buildings were constructed along the path down from the main centre to the ashram gates.
[32][33] Scottish singer-songwriter Donovan arrived soon after the Beatles,[34] and Mia Farrow, Mike Love of the Beach Boys and jazz flautist Paul Horn[35] were among the dozens of other meditators, all of them Europeans or Americans.
[18][36][nb 2] One of the Beatles' friends, Alexis "Magic Alex" Mardas, an electronics engineer and inventor,[38] was summoned to Rishikesh in the hope of providing the ashram with a high-power radio transmitter to broadcast the Maharishi's message.
[14] According to Nancy Cooke de Herrera, an American devotee who was assigned to look after the Western celebrities, the Maharishi obtained many "special items" from a nearby village so that the Beatles' rooms would have mirrors, wall-to-wall carpeting, wall coverings, foam mattresses and bedspreads.
They left on 12 April amid an atmosphere of recrimination towards the Maharishi, based on rumours of his alleged impropriety with some of the female students,[56] and the two band members' misgivings that he was taking advantage of the Beatles' fame.
Despite their subsequent repudiation of the Maharishi, the Beatles' stay at the ashram generated wide interest in Transcendental Meditation, which encouraged the study of Eastern spirituality in Western popular culture.
[26] In 2003, Jerry Hall produced a television series for the BBC titled Gurus, which included interviews with TM initiates such as Cooke de Herrera, and a visit to the ashram in Rishikesh.
In the 2009 Indian general election, Satpal Maharaj had raised the importance of retaining "the rich spirituality of the area" and in 2013 he vowed to preserve the "glorious history of the Beatles" represented by Chaurasi Kutia.
[67] Coinciding with this event, the director of the Rajaji Tiger Reserve stated his intention to preserve the existing buildings as "heritage structures" while Dinesh Agrawal, the foreign minister for Uttarakhand, said: "Our aim is to ensure that visitors don't simply come for the Beatles connection but to learn the magic of nature, meditation and yoga.
[59] Another of the artists, Miles Toland, said he sought to pay tribute to the Maharishi in his work, which depicts spiritually themed scenes he first photographed in Rishikesh.
[26][nb 6] The exhibition in Liverpool featured memorabilia, photographs from the 1968 retreat by Paul Saltzman, a sitar courtesy of the Ravi Shankar Foundation, and video contributions from Pattie and Jenny Boyd.
