How a Canadian man's existential crisis led to these very famous photos of the Beatles
Paul Saltzman’s Beatles in India photos came as a result of a serendipitous meeting
In 1968, filmmaker Paul Saltzman went to India and took some photographs of the Beatles that eventually became very famous. These photos would form the basis of a book, as well as a show, on now, at the Markham Street Gallery in Toronto.
But at the time, Saltzman didn't go to India with the intent of having a book or a gallery show or even photographing the Beatles at all. He didn't even know they were there. He went because he was having an existential crisis.
Saltzman says that, at the time, he had everything he could have wanted; he had a budding career in film, an apartment in Montreal, a girlfriend and a cool car. But one morning, he woke up and realized: "there were parts of myself I didn't like, and I wasn't a very self-reflective person, so that was a shock." Sitting on the edge of his bed, he asked himself what he was supposed to do about that, and he heard "a deep inner voice that was all calming and all loving." It was a voice that he describes as that of "his soul." And that voice told him to get out of his environment, and specifically, to head to India.
So he did. He got a gig as the sound engineer on a National Film Board documentary crew heading to India — despite having no experience doing sound. Unfortunately, his trip didn't go quite as he planned. While he was away, he received a letter from his girlfriend back in Canada, dumping him.
"I was shattered," he says. "I was devastated. I've had heartbreaks … and that was the worst heartbreak I've had in my whole life, including two marriages that went south."
An acquaintance told him to try meditation to get over the heartbreak, which led him to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's ashram in Rishikesh. Unfortunately, when he got there, he was told by one of the Maharishi's assistants that he could not come in "at this time," because the Beatles were there and the ashram was closed to the public.
Saltzman chose to take the phrase "at this time" at face value, and opted to sleep in a tent outside the ashram gate, waiting to be let in. After several days, and what he later found out was much debate among the Maharishi's inner circle, Saltzman was allowed in the ashram, which meant that its residents — beyond the Maharishi and his staff — consisted of four of the most famous people in the world; their wives; a handful of other celebrities including Beach Boy Mike Love, Mia Farrow and Donovan; and one weird, heartbroken Canadian.
Shortly after his first 30-minute Transcendental Meditation session, which Saltzman says left him "in a state of bliss," he found himself face-to-face with the Beatles. His first thought was, "Eek, it's the Beatles." And then he heard his soul speak to him a second time.
"It says, 'Well, Paul, they're just ordinary people like you.'" he recalls. '"Everyone farts and is afraid in the night.' And from the time that voice finished, I spent a week with them. I never, ever thought of them as Beatles … People say, 'Did you know it was this historic moment?' No, I was just hanging out with these people."
While he was hanging out with his new friends, John, Paul, George and Ringo, Saltzman also took a few photos.
"I only took 72 transparencies," he says. "I had loads of film. I literally didn't think of it. I took my camera out twice in seven days. I was with them. I have somebody famous in 54 of the pictures."
When he got back to Canada, he tried to figure out what to do with his photos, but once again, he heard his soul speak to him, saying it was "too soon." So he put the negatives in a box, wrote "India 1968" on it and forgot about them for three decades. It wasn't until his daughter, then a teenager, became a Beatles fan in her own right that he fished them out again.
Those photos eventually became his book The Beatles in India, released in 2005 and reprinted in 2018. They're also on display as part of the new exhibit, Paul Saltzman: The Beatles in India at Toronto's Markham Street Galler. The exhibit includes five previously unseen photographs.
"I had kind of forgot about them," Saltzman says. "And then I kind of came across them and I thought, 'Well, you know, A) they're just sitting around, B) I could use the money and C) someone would love to have them.'"
The fact that people still want to see his photos almost 60 years later speaks to the continued popularity of the Beatles, which Satlzman attributes to two special qualities of the group. One of those things, he says, is a sense of joy that's all too rare in today's world.
"Their music is joyful," he says. "We don't have enough joy in our lives ... If I hear the Beatles come on the radio while I'm driving, I find myself breaking into a big smile, because their music is joyful."
The other thing, he says, is a sense of authenticity.
"They wrote about things that are intimate," he says. "People crave intimacy … Intimacy is an opening of the heart. The opposite of intimacy is control, and the opposite of control is intimacy. You cannot have an intimate relationship with yourself or anybody else if you're insisting on being in control — there's no room for intimacy. John Lennon, in one of his interviews, said: 'If you want to know about the Beatles, just listen to our music.' They were singing about their lives. They were narrating their own challenging journeys."
Paul Saltzman: The Beatles in India runs at the Markham Street Gallery (298 Markham St.) in Toronto until Sept. 1.
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