The Present, 5am, 29 May 2026, Delhi
Today morning, I remembered how important The Beatles were for me; also how old I'd grown.
Paul McCartney released 'The Boys of Dungeon Lane' this morning. In fact, the album was out at midnight, but I didn't want to listen to it in that groggy state. I didn't want to listen with my groggy morning ears either.
After the disappointments of Egypt Station (2018) McCartney III (2020) I was hoping, really hoping.
I had heard the first single from the album, "Days we Left Behind" many times this month. It was reflective and tender. Quietly beautiful. But there is a huge difference between the emotion-scape of a 3 minute song and an entire album. It's the difference between a newspaper article and a novel.
So, at 6am, somewhat coffee-ed, somewhat less excited (nothing feels worse than shattered expectations) I put my Bose earbuds on, and revved my attention to mindfulness cruise control.
But.....I kept slipping in reverse. Far down the roads of my past. Far away from the present.
Kolkata 1979
That's when I first heard The Beatles, as an 8 year old and they made me nauseous! Even by the limited music exposure I had then (Simon and Garfunkel, The Bee Gees, The Police) The Beatles were the worst. I had their album 1962-66 and I only listened to LP 1 Side 1. "Love Me Do," "Please Please Me," "I Want to Hold Your Hand," 'Eight Days a Week" they made me gag. Soppy, claustrophobic, oversweet crap. I'm glad at the age of 8 I could have an allergic reaction to that kind of poppy-soppy stuff.
Mumbai, 1988
9 years later, I was 17. Everything had changed. Cities (Kolkata gave way to Mumbai) Hormones (Puberty), Self-Consciousness (Puberty again) and a desperate need to get high (Alcohol was soon to enter my life) and The Beatles (from cute mop-tops singing cuter songs to long-haired psychedelic hippies singing stuff that blew my mind).
The first group I would get high to in the best of all possible trips - were (not Pink Floyd) but The Beatles.
That was it !
"Because" on Abbey Road.
One shot of vodka. The buzzing high - climbing creeper-like.
And John-Paul-George singing together - my High meeting their Harmony. The result - a kind of musical sat-chit-ananda I find hard to describe.
There were so many songs of theirs which were my "I'm Tripping" tracks.
"Because," "Tomorrow Never Knows," "Dear Prudence," "Strawberry Fields Forever." So many. I had discovered The Beatles.
Kolkata 1993
I was alcoholic. I was undergoing therapy. I was unemployed. I was 22. I had attempted suicide. I had survived. I was happy. I had discovered reading.
I was reading voraciously from September 1992 till July 1994, when I got my first job.
In those two years of recovery and therapy - I read from morning to night. Two years of insane reading. One of the things I read was the literary journal Granta. And in a 1993 edition they featured a short piece by Hanif Kureishi called 'Eight Arms to Hold You.'
Guess who's arms they were? That's right. John, Paul, George and Ringo. I didn't know then that that was the original title for the album Help - I just thought Kureishi had come up with the most brilliant title to sum up what The Beatles were for me.
They held me. Their albums held me. I cried.
They were the musical backbone to my broken teenage life. They were the one consistent thing for me. Revolver, Sgt Peppers, The White Album, Abbey Road, Let it Be. It sounds terribly shallow. Getting sustenance from the albums of some pop band.
"Is that all the depth you had accumulated till your early twenties? Weren't there more important things happening in the world? Is that all your pathetic young life was about at age 21 - Booze and The Beatles?"
Well....yes.
Until another magical B appeared in 1992. BOOKS!
Now my life was Booze, Beatles and Books.
Books added the depth that cut out the "pathetic shallowness" barb that my inner critic threw at me every morning, mid-morning, late-morning, evening, semi-evening, late-evening....you get the picture.
Books added enormous depth. And Eight Arms To Hold You, gave me a sociological perspective to what The Beatles did for young people in post-war Britain, post-imperial Britian, Britain in the 60s.
I didn't live in Britain. Nor did I live in the 60s. But guess what they gave me - sustenance, creativity, sparkle, magic, spirituality, bliss, quiet, otherworldliness - despite my being in another time, another place.
Mumbai 2005
I was in Mumbai now. One quiet year. Very quiet year. A sober year. No alcohol. No marriage either. I was soon to be divorced. I transferred from Kolkata to Mumbai. I worked in my radio station afternoon to night. Caught a late night empty local train home and read and listened to music till dawn and then slept.
That's when another McCartney album happened. He had already surprised me with Flaming Pie in 1997. This was not the soppy-poppy crap he churned out in the 70s, 80s and a lot of the 90s. This was art-rock. This was harking back to what he had left behind.
And in 2005 I heard Chaos and Creation in the Backyard. Wow! The man was back. His music was different. His lyrics were real. He was real.
There is a long way
Between chaos and creation
If you don't say
Which one of these you're gonna choose
It's a long way
And if every contradiction seems the same
It's a game that you're bound to lose
And from that sage-advice came warm hope and acceptance.
Come home brother all is forgiven
We all cried when you were driven away
Come home brother everything is better
Everything is better when you come home to stay
Wow! Eight Arms to Hold You all over again. I cried again too.
Delhi, 2007.
I am in the third metro of my life. Delhi. I think I'll keep it at this. Chennai isn't gonna happen. And, McCartney releases Memory Almost Full.
High Expectations. First Listen. Total Rubbish. Disgusting. Calm down. Next day. Second listen. Entire album. Wow! This is good!
That's ADHD shorthand for my 'listens' to what has become one of my favourite albums.
Memory Almost Full seemed to be an Abbey Road Part 2 to me. The second part of the album had his memories merging into each other. An entire memory medley, ending with a track suitably titled "The End of The End."
And just like "Her Majesty" pops up after Abbey Road says it's "The End" with a soaring harmonic goodbye - here too a little screamy semi-track called "Nod Your Head" pops up, closing Memory Almost Full.
McCartney was reviving Beatles brilliance decades after flushing it down the toilet in his solo career. My ears were opened.
Back to The Present, 6am, 29 May 2026, Delhi
I lost my closest music buddy a fortnight ago. We discovered music together through the 90s, 00s, 10s and 20s. Till two weeks ago that is.
I felt a sharp, searing pain.
This is the first thing we would have been sharing with each other. Who do I have to talk to about music now? Who else holds music like a spiritual backbone and not an entertainment muscle to flex on and off? A true chord-progression-skeleton on which the flesh and blood of our lives hang? Who else do I know, for whom a new album is at the centre not periphery of their day?
Who else thinks of music as philosophy, not casual conversation? Who else listens in musical meditation to entire albums the way I do? Many people. Of course.
But I knew only one. And he's gone.
The Present 7am, Friday, 29th May, 2026
It began. The album.
I say "It" because The Beatles are like that for me. Another entity, another phenomenon, another state of consciousness.
And it's good. It's really good. It's Paul. It's memories. It's adventure. It's melody. It's whimsy. It's a lot. Most importantly (this being Paul) it doesn't embarass.
I'm not getting into the details. I will do. A little later. Today is a day for Absorb.
And I am absorbing the album.
And...what can I say? It's good.
I don't need to say more, because for me The Beatles are synonymous with what Indian Mystics call Sat-Chit-Ananda.
Look. It's entirely plausible. At the end of the day you can experience the bliss of universal oneness by gazing at a leaf, a stone, a droplet of water at the edge of a tap. So, why not a McCartney album? Anything can get you there right? The Beatles are just my path.
And I experienced it. In brief half-seconds. That's as much time as I can sustain mystic bliss.
But, truly, at 7am today:
There was no past, present or future. The 8 year old, 18 year old and 54 year old were merged together. And whoever is reading this - there was no you and me either.
The Beatles, you and me. We were all one.
We were the makers of the song, we were the listeners of the song, and you know what? We were the song itself.
