Popular Culture Review 30.2
grief . No matter what one ’ s current place in the cycle of love , loss , and recovery , the Beatles recorded at least several songs to express the feeling .
Jhumpa Lahiri seems to know this about the Beatles . She defamiliarizes them by inviting her readers to look at / listen to the White Album through the eyes of an Indian-American male listening to its third side on his 14 th birthday�an extraordinary act of sympathy and imagination on Lahiri ’ s part that causes long-time Fab listeners , no matter what their national or ethnic backgrounds , to hear this music with new ears . Lahiri connects the dots between the band ’ s extended stay in India , the creation of the White Album , and Gogol ’ s actual birthday , all of these occurring in the year 1968 . To peel back , the veneer of the birthday scene is to find this content :
• Of the White Album ’ s 30 songs , 19 were composed during the Beatles ’ sojourn from February through April 1968 at the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi ’ s ashram in Rishikesh , India .
• Of the seven songs on side 3 of the White Album , five were written while he was in Rishikesh .
• By 1968 , George Harrison had spent the previous 2 years in studying classical Bengali music as well as Hindu scriptures . Ironically , had they not explored the music of a heritage that Gogol resented , his favorite band ’ s catalog from 1965 and on would have been far less impressive . Here is the timeline of the main Indian-related events in the Beatles career :
1 . In February 1965 while filming the Bahamas scenes for Help !, the band members were approached by Swami Vishnu-Devananda , of-
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