A CENTURY OF BLOGS

The Blogspot count says my Beatles blog was the 100th and this is my 101st blog. I differ slightly- the first blog counted by the site was all of three sentences stating who I am and announcing my intentions of starting a blog. The introduction was short because actually I don't quite know who I really am. So I shall treat this piece as my 100th blog.

It is hard to believe. I am no writer. After a few essays in school and NDA, whatever writing we did in the Navy was governed by rules of ‘service writing’ with its official format and phraseology. That left little scope for personal flair. For example, a Commanding Officer (CO), on transfer of an officer, was required to give a very brief summary of his impressions on the latter’s performance on a short form called ‘Flimsy’ which began with the printed line, “The officer has carried out his duties to my….” The usual words that the CO was expected to use to complete the sentence were “to my entire satisfaction”, “to my satisfaction” or occasionally “not to my satisfaction”. I once heard of a CO who used the words “to his own satisfaction” and the whole Navy was full of admiration and “Wah wahs” for this most original piece of writing.

After leaving the Navy and settling down in Delhi, certain naval events like the decommissioning of ships I had served on, Trishul and Vikrant, ignited a desire within me to write about them which I did. The pieces were accepted by newspapers which published them. In 1997, The Sunday Observer Chairman offered to make me its Defence Editor. I worked in that capacity for a few months but there were pressures from certain quarters to publish what they wanted and I decided to quit that job.

Meanwhile, I was reading ‘middles’ in newspapers written by ex-defence officers including my uncle, Cmde Vinnie Sharma. That gave me the idea to pen down my own experiences and anecdotes and the Times Of India and the Indian Express readily accepted them. Two naval veterans in particular liked my 'middles', Vice Admiral RKS Ghandhi and Commodore RS Malia. Admiral Russi Ghandhi who I had never served under and who didn’t know me at all traced my whereabouts and wrote a very appreciative letter. Thereafter, I met him a number of times during my visits to Bombay when he recounted some funny stories of his own.  We then kept in regular touch till he passed away.

On another occasion, I ran into Commodore Randhir Malia during a walk on Cuffe Parade. I introduced myself and his immediate reaction was, “Oh, you are the writer!” He too filled me in with some humorous anecdotes.

I expanded my field to golf, travel and music. Sometime in 2010s, newspapers stopped publishing ‘middles’ and my writings dried up. A number of friends told me to write a book about my life but I didn’t take them seriously wondering who would be interested in it. On a visit to Bombay, Akhila’s cousin, Yogesh, himself a journalist of stature, insisted that I write. When asked ‘what about’, he quoted the example of Alexander McCall Smith who he said religiously penned down 1000 words every day no matter what.

In 2018, Akhila took on the task of researching her family history including two major events, the 1915 robbery by Sultana Daku which ended in the gruesome murder of her grandmother witnessed by her 5- year old father and 2-year old uncle, and the 1946 train accident which killed her elder uncle, Tauji, and Phupaji. She put all that down in a book and also wrote about her early days in Bijnor and family customs and traditions. Watching her, I was inspired to write about my own past and interests. I was firm in my belief that nobody would be interested in a book but why not write a blog? That way, I would be able to pen down whatever I wanted without worrying about publishers, content and whether others found it interesting or not. I would let my close relatives and friends know about it and then have complete freedom to write whatever came to my mind regardless of whether anyone read it or not.

Thus was born ''Ravi's Ruminations'' and as music has been my passion since my kiddie days, I chose to go through my life recalling songs as years advanced. Songs have a strange connect with me: a song flashes some memory within me while an incident brings to mind some song. So I titled my first blog, "Life- A Musical Journey". Response from my well-wishers was good and from then on, I have taken to write about my naval career, nautical stories, golf, travel, movies, music, of course, and whatever comes to mind. With the result that, unbelievably, I have reached a century of blogs!

Tailpiece. Not exactly writing but related to it. In 1996, British Airways (BA) ran a contest asking people to write a short piece on what they liked about London. Off the cuff, I wrote 2 limericks and sent in the entries in Akhila's and my name. The one for Akhila won her a prize of two return tickets, a 4-day stay in a studio apartment in Hyde Park, London, and tickets to a one-day match between India and England at Lord's. As Shumita had not seen London, Akhila took her along and they had a lovely trip. And I won a consolation prize of 6 BA coasters!

Then in 1998, Delta Airlines put out a contest in Economic Times. One had to complete the sentence, "I love Delta Airlines and Economic Times because.....".  I wrote ".....Delta gives me cool trips and ET gives me hot tips." That got me a free business class return ticket to New York. A ticket for Akhila was all that was required for our first visit to the US.

THE BEATLES-THEIR MUSIC AND MANIA

I have posted a number of blogs on music but none so far on The Beatles. The Beatles are right on top of my favourites list and the reason I have hesitated to write about them is similar to what I felt about Lata Mangeshkar: I am in awe of them. But I love them and would like to share my thoughts about them with those close to me who would surely forgive me for any sins of omission.

Anybody who is interested in music and even not so inclined would need no introduction to this phenomenal group. Books have been written on the extraordinary achievements of The Beatles comprising of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. The Beatles or the Fab Four, just over or under 20, came into being in Liverpool, UK, in 1960 with Lennon, McCartney and Harrison, and Pete West as the original drummer soon to be replaced by Ringo. For over two years, they were virtually unknown till they caught the attention of the music world on 5 October 1962 with “Love Me Do”, their first recording. They broke up in the spring of 1970. Here is a short summary of their super achievements in less than 8 years:- 

They have been termed “The Most Influential Band of All Time”.

They are considered to be the “Best Selling Music Act of All Time” having sales of over 600 million units worldwide.

Among their records which still stand: 

1. Most singles sold in the UK at 21.9 million. 

2. Most No. 1 albums on the UK chart – 15. 

3. Most No. 1 singles hits on US Billboard Hot 100 – 20. 

4. Most No.1 singles hits in UK – 17.

Time magazine named them among “20th Century’s 100 Most Influential People”.

The London Observer in October 1968 considered them the “Greatest Songwriters Since Schubert”.

The best quote I have come across is from an old, serious journalist, Ian Macdonald – “Anyone unlucky enough not to have been aged between fourteen and thirty during 1966-7 will never know the excitement of those years in popular culture. A sunny optimism permeated everything….The Beatles were at their peak and were looked up to in awe as arbiters of a positive new age in which the dead customs of the older generation would be refreshed and remade through the creative energy of the classless young.”

Lucky for me, I was very much within the age limit!

The innovative quality of the Beatles stood out from the word go. Although John Lennon was basically a guitar player, he used the harmonica for the opening bars of “Love Me Do” and through the song. This made it intensely attractive and satisfying. Another factor listeners liked was that they were their own songwriters and not dependent on outsiders like someone from the US. The outstanding feature of their lyrics was that they were brief and simple yet sweetly intense to please the senses. They were mostly a plea for love, true and pure, content with holding hands or, at most, a kiss.

Like most of their songs, “Love Me Do” lasts just over 2 minutes. Its lyrics-

‘ Love, love me do, you know I love you, I’ll always be true,

So please, love me do, whoa, love me do

(Repeat)

Someone to love, somebody new,

Someone to love, someone like you

(Repeat the first two lines ‘love, love me do….whoa, love me do’ twice)’

That’s it!!

In March ’63 they released an album “Please Please Me” which was the first of 11 consecutive Beatles albums to reach the number one spot in UK. A song from the album, “From Me To You” climbed to the top of the charts starting an unbroken string of 17 British number 1 singles over the next 6 years.

It was the release of “She Loves You” in August ’63 that made Beatles superstars. Innovation in the song: the repeated use of the exclamation “yeah yeah yeah” which became their signature phrase. The song is pure joy and self-satisfying. ‘She’ refers to their female fans while ‘You’ means The Beatles. Some lines-

‘She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah….

Because she loves you, and you know that can’t be bad,

Yes, she loves you, and you know you should be glad.’ 

By October that year, Beatlemania had become a recognized word. Hordes of frantic, screaming girls chased them wherever they went. Beatles gave themselves an exclusive look with smart clothes and shoes and a mop of French styled hair which nevertheless appeared clean and ‘washed’. Their physical appearance inspired frenzy but was friendly and charming. After their performance at the Royal Variety Show on 4 November ’63 which included Royalty such as Queen Mother and Princess Margaret, the Daily Mirror wrote “They’re young, new. They’re high-spirited, cheerful. What a change from the self-pitying moaners crooning their love-lorn tunes from the tortured shallows of lukewarm hearts.” They appeared to have transcended the authoritarianism and class-consciousness associated with the old British and won over everyone from 7 to 70. The Beatles themselves said that the Royal Variety Show turned them from rising stars to household names and darlings of the nation. Their visit to the US next February confirmed their international popularity.

Songs flowed in quick succession. I was a happy-go-lucky bachelor in the NDA in ’64-’65 with plenty of time to listen to their songs. My colleagues and I would get together in the Mess for a drink in the evening which invariably included singing Beatles’ songs. The first of my 7 favourites of that time was the song that won them the USA, “I Want To Hold Your Hand” – 

‘Oh please, say to me, you’ll let me be your man,

And please say to me, you’ll let me hold your hand….

And when I touch you I feel happy, inside,

It’s such a feeling that my love, I can’t hide, I can’t hide, I can’t hide….

I want to hold your hand.’

Another sweet number was “All My Loving”-

‘Close your eyes and I’ll kiss you, tomorrow I’ll miss you,

Remember I’ll always be true,

And then while I’m away, I’ll write home every day,

And I’ll send all my loving to you.’

In the same vein was “And I Love Her”-

‘I give her all my love, that’s all I do,

And if you saw my love, you’d love her too,

I love her….

A love like ours, could never die,

As long as I have you near me….’

“I Saw Her Standing There” was a lively, swinging number with the singer at a dance sighting a seventeen year old girl with a look ‘way beyond compare’. He knows that before too long, he’d fall in love with her. His heart goes ‘boom’ as he crossed that room and held her hand in ‘mine’. They ‘danced through the night and held each other tight’ and ‘I’ll never dance with another, ooh, since I saw her standing there.’ The distinguishing feature of the song was a long drawn out ‘my-eeeeEEEEn’ that made us compete to see who would outlast the others.

“I Should Have Known Better” was softer with distinct guitar strums and harmonica. Some lines-

‘I should have known better with a girl like you,

That I would love everything that you do,

And I do, hey hey hey, and I do….

That when I tell you that I love you, oh,

You’re gonna say you love me too, ohh!’

Next, “Can’t Buy Me Love” and the title says it all:

‘I’ll give you all I’ve got to give if you say you love me true.

I may not have a lot to give, what I’ve got I’ll give to you.

I don’t care too much for money, money can’t buy me love.’

They made a movie titled “A Hard Day’s Night’’ the theme song of which sounded great with a few screaming 'OW's and was, of course, a super hit. 

‘It’s been a hard day’s night, and I’ve been working like a dog,

It’s been a hard day’s night, I should be sleeping like a log,

But when I get home to you, I find the things that you do,

Will make me feel alright, OW.’

Except that those days the third line did not apply to me as I was getting home not to any 'you' but just to a lonely cabin! Felt alright nevertheless.

The Navy kept me on the run but the Beatles were stable as number one. Their second movie “Help” and its theme song were very popular and then came a heart-rending ballad “Yesterday” which I consider to be one of the best of all-time. It’s written and sung by Paul McCartney who said it came to him in a dream and describes the anguish of a lover when things went wrong-

‘Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away,

Now it looks as though they are here to stay

Oh, I believe in yesterday….

Yesterday, love was such an easy game to play,

Now I need a place to hide away,

Oh, I believe in yesterday.

Why she had to go, I don’t know, she wouldn’t say,

I said something wrong, now I long for yesterday.’

Meanwhile, George Harrison had developed a student-teacher relationship with the sitar maestro, Ravi Shankar. The sitar was used extensively in “Norwegian Wood”, a song with mysterious lines which, it is said, pointed to a secret love affair of John Lennon.

Another unique song was “Eleanor Rigby” with a haunting backing of strings in a classical mode.

Two songs from them were tributes to their favourite haunts in Liverpool, their home town. “Strawberry Fields Forever” was a sweet number sung by John Lennon about such a place in Liverpool. In memory of John Lennon, a prominent section of the Central Park in New York City is named ‘Strawberry Fields’ and has ‘Imagine’ implanted in the centre of a well-designed circle. It is on my walking route whenever I am in New York and I often find an amateur singer or guitarist playing a Beatles number for a small crowd and passersby.

Paul wrote and sang a joyous melody “Penny Lane” which described the street of that name in Liverpool. The distinct feature of the song was a brilliant piccolo trumpet solo by a non-Beatle, David Mason.

Two top favourites of mine were released in ’67-’68. The first was quite a whacky number and maybe that’s why I liked it. “Hello Goodbye” is a song which can be sung to tease someone trying to give you the short-shrift-

‘You say, yes, I say no, you say stop, I say go go go, oh no,

You say goodbye, I say hello, hello hello,

I don’t know why you say goodbye, I say hello, hello hello,

I don’t know why you say goodbye I say hello.’

And then it launches into a long chorus of ‘Hela, heba, helloa, hela heba, helloa, hela, heba, helloa….’ Crazy but catchy!

“Hey Jude” is right on top of my list. An entrancing number sung by Paul, it was originally thought of as “Hey Jules” and written to comfort John’s son, Julian, following his parents’ divorce-

“And anytime you feel the pain, hey Jude, refrain,

Don’t carry the world upon your shoulder,

For well, you know that it’s a fool, who plays it cool,

By making his world a little colder.”

Its ‘na-na-na-nanana-nana’ chorus then goes on for a long time making it the Beatles’ longest single. For me, that’s what makes it special.

Another interesting and fun number was “Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da”, also written and sung by Paul. By now, I was on Trishul and my good friend and shipmate Roly Lewin and I used to play and sing this song and the ‘na-na-na-na’ refrain of “Hey Jude” so loud that we used to drive the older and more staid officers out of the Wardroom!

In 1967, the Beatles had reached the apex of their career. Their new album, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” was released and was considered to be the ultimate offering of the 'Summer Of Love' of '67 and the first ‘concept album’. Ten years after it was issued, it was voted by an international panel of critics as the best rock album of all time. A veteran journalist, Langdon Winner, said that driving across the US, he heard it everywhere he went. He wrote that this was “the closest the Western Civilization has come to unity since the Congress of Vienna in 1815.” 

However, all was not well with the Beatles. Differences had started surfacing particularly between John and Paul. George was influenced by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi to the extent that he took all of them to Rishikesh for a 3 month meditation course; Ringo got fed up and left in 10 days, Paul in 20 days and both John and George also left in about 2 months. Use of drugs was making the songs lose their simplicity and making the music acquire a more complex and psychedelic form. The John Lennon and Yoko Ono affair was causing a diversion and John’s insistence on Yoko’s presence in the studio for recording sessions was not appreciated by others.  In fact, John himself said that they were no longer performing as Beatles but increasingly as John and the Band, Paul and the Band and George and the Band. To add to their problems, Brian Epstein, the manager who had led them to unparalleled success, passed away leaving them shattered.

In the midst of all this, John wrote a song, “Ballad Of John And Yoko”, chronicling the events leading to their wedding. He requested Paul to record the song with him and Paul, disregarding their differences, readily obliged. This song, without George and Ringo, went on to become their 17th and final number one in UK.

It is truly amazing that with all the tension and bad blood between them, they were able to successfully record their last two albums, “Abbey Road” and “Let It Be”, which were released in September ’69 and on 8 May ’70 respectively. Both hit the number one spot and are among the bestselling albums of all time.

“Abbey Road” included captivating numbers like ‘Come Together’ and ‘Here Comes The Sun’ but the best was George Harrison’s ‘Something’. No less a person than Frank Sinatra called it the ‘greatest love song of the last 50 years’. The song became extremely popular and was later recorded by various well-known artistes. Some of its memorable lines-

'Something in the way she moves, attracts me like no other lover....

Somewhere in her smile she knows, that I don't need no other lover....

Something in the things she shows me,

I don't want to leave her now....'

Their swan song album, “Let It Be” had the emotional title song which was a tribute to Paul’s late mother. Another appealing number was “The Long And Winding Road”. Finally, the last song for the album was to be titled “The End” signalling their breakup. However, they agreed to delay the announcement of the split and finished with “Get Back” which had the lines, ‘Get back, get back, get back to where you once belonged.’

Unfortunately, the Beatles never did!

A compilation of their number one singles in the UK and US simply titled “1” was released on 13 November 2000 to mark the 30th anniversary of their break-up. That album topped music charts worldwide and sold 31 million copies. It remained number one on music charts of most countries all over the world for 6 years and is still in the top 100 in UK, US and Ireland. The album has been revised to include some more songs and till October 2019, was the bestselling album of the 21st century in the US with a sale of 13 million copies.

The world is alive with the sound of Beatles.