Deborah Baker’s A Blue Hand – The Beats in India remains the most comprehensive and most evocative exploration of those times. Here’s highlights from the symposium held in New York in 2008 at the Asia Society to celebrate the publication of that book.
And here’s an excerpt from a gathering that took place in Mumbai that same year (Deborah Baker speaks on a panel alongside Prabo Parikh, Adil Jussawalla and Jerry Pinto)
Two reviews from The Hindustan Times may be read here and here . The Calcutta Telegraph reviews the book here (and interviews the author). IBN (Indian Broadcasting Network) gives a brief video-profile of the book here.
As for American reviews, here’s Celia McGee in the New York Times – More reviews can be found – here
Allen’s Indian Journals remain, of course, the primary text, but Baker supplemented this, drawing from letters, journals, and memoirs, extensively researching her subject.
A more recent piece of Baker’s also comes highly-recommended – “For The Sake of The Song” (“A tangled tale of Bauls, Beat Poets, Bob Dylan and one woman’s effort to preserve the music and stories of West Bengal’s wandering minstrels”).
Bill Morgan at the end of the Asia Society symposium notes the importance of a later work of Allen’s, his poem, September On Jessore Road, written in 1971, after visiting the war-zone and witnessing first-hand the horror of the refugee camps. In many ways (particularly through a moving rendition/interpretation by Bengali singer Moushumi Bhoumik) the piece has become something of an anthem now (a historicized anthem) for Bangladeshi Liberation.
Deborah Baker here provides “the back-story” (one back-story): “It (I have to say) is a terrible poem. (!) Partly because Allen wrote it (not as a poem but) as song lyrics. I heard a number of renditions on cassettes and even his fellow musicians groaned in frustration at his inability to carry a simple tune. Of course, he was completely unfazed. As to the motivation behind it…His intention was to write a song that would make (Bob) Dylan cry. I don’t think Allen ever recovered from hearing Dylan the first time he returned from India, he realized immediately that he’d been superseded, that the Beat thing, which he was both haunted and sustained by, was over. In the Scorcese Dylan documentary he actually bursts into tears describing the moment, and he was in his seventies then. So I have serious questions about his motives in writing that poem. Since Dylan never showed up at the $7000 recording session, I don’t think he liked it either, or he saw what Allen was up to. Allen’s brother (Eugene) ended up picking up the tab. So that is the backstory” –
Btw, not sure what $7000 session Deb’s referring to, but Dylan did end up playing piano, electric and acoustic guitar on the 1971 Record Plant recording of SoJR. Deb if you’re out there, maybe you can clarify?
1961, ’62, time goes by, so, pretty much half-a-century ago. Fifty years on and it’s now a pre-arranged itinerary for the tourist!
Couldn't answer exactly why Allen & Peter grew their hair long in India. Perhaps because they just didn't have time, but perhaps because the Sadhus that grew their hair long fascinated Allen and so Allen followed in their steps that way. Allen didn't cut his hair when he returned, but kept it long till the mid 1970s.
when and why did they grow their hair long in india? Pic ablove I have seen as 1961 but in 1961 they had short hair. WHy did they cut their hair again in 1963 when comming bacack from india? Just trying to get a timeline when the long hair movement phasedd into America. Email me codeygoo@yahoo.com
Name John Morton thanks yall
It was a Beatnik thing, sign of rebellion against the militarised (descendent of Cromwell’s New Model Army of ‘Roundheads’ – though ironically the Roundhead cut was more like a Beatle/’Exis’ one) short-back ‘n’ sides/crew-cut that was de rigeur for men from national service, from WW1 onwards.
It pre-dated The Beatles by several years. But the widespread adoption by men of long hair really was from 1964 onwards, once The Beatles phenomenon, and everything it symbolised, went global.
Here’s a fascinating BBC documentary about the Beatniks in Cornwall, from 1960, presented by Alan Whicker. The Beatles original hairstyle, inspired by photographer Astrid Kirchherr, who died recently, was based on French/German art student style of the time. It was only later they came to resemble Saadhus!