How I Ticked Off George Harrison In 1976...

… and got into Martin Scorcese’s film on the third Beatle 35 years later

- C. Y. Gopinath

GEORGE HARRISON was clearly upset. I could tell from the way he was glowering at me. His lips were tight; he looked very ticked off.

We were standing facing the trellis door of an ancient lift on the seventh floor of a crumbling apartment building in Calcutta. The year was 1976. Behind him was the closed door of his house. We could hear the lift cranking up slowly from the ground floor, stopping at every floor. It would take at least five minutes to reach us.

I had Harrison all to myself for five minutes. And there was only one question I wanted to ask him.

IT HAD ALL STARTED as just another uneventful morning in the offices of Junior Statesman (JS), the youth magazine where I was a reporter. Around mid-morning, I was summoned to the editor’s room. Desmond Doig, an Irishman in his 50s, was looking very serious, which meant that he could barely contain his excitement.

“Rumour has it,” he said melodramatically, “that a certain George Harrison is currently somewhere in this very city. Rumour adds that he may not be here tomorrow. It is whispered that he will be off to the holy city of Varanasi. Your assignment for the day is to track him down, interview him and thus, get the scoop of your lifetime.”

And so it began.

Calcutta is not a big city; everyone knows everyone else. These were the days before the internet, SMS and WhatsApp, but I was sure that a few strategically placed calls would yield results. I started with the city’s thriving rock-and-roll fraternity.

My first task was to sweet-talk Cynthia, the operator on duty at the telephone exchange of The Statesman newspaper, into giving top priority to my calls. Cynthia was a softie, plus she kinda liked me.